Chapter 57 The Warning

Amara’s apartment was small but warm, perched on the fifth floor of an aging brick building that smelled faintly of rain-soaked concrete and the bakery downstairs. It was her sanctuary—one place untouched by the chaos she sometimes glimpsed through her camera lens. Here, the walls were lined with books and mismatched frames, the kitchen counter always cluttered with coffee mugs and film canisters.

She’d come home early, trying to convince herself the tension from the studio that morning would fade once she was in her own space. She brewed tea, curled on the couch with her laptop, and let the steady hum of the radiator fill the silence.

But she kept glancing at the window.

It wasn’t that she’d heard anything unusual—no creak of the fire escape, no shadow slipping past the glass. It was just… a feeling. The same one she’d had earlier when she walked up the street, like a presence just behind her, close enough to breathe the same air.

She told herself she was imagining it.

Still, when th