IT WAS MIDNIGHT. There was no clock—I just knew. I could feel it in the tension of the night breeze, its cool temperature causing my bare arms to break out in bumps. Damp grass numbed my toes as my feet pattered across the lawn of the cemetery.

A voice in the dark corners of my mind was questioning me. It wondered just where I was going. I wondered that, too. But somehow, I knew. Somehow, I felt that I was getting closer. A fog was rolling in when I finally saw it—a withered barn at the back of the cemetery.

It came into my sight, and suddenly I was standing several feet behind myself. I watched myself continue on in the dark without concern from beside the final row of headstones. But I could see clearly from here that the woman I watched was in fact not me.

She had black hair, wearing a white nightgown that hugged her thin frame, and she was much taller than I was. The voice in my mind spoke to me again, louder than before. I could feel its whispers physically pulling my head down and to the right.

It was aiming my sight to something new—a headstone at my side. The words etched deep into the slab of concrete were painfully familiar. AGATHA SYREN. My mother. A black bird sat atop the headstone. Its beady, black eyes stared at me as it fidgeted.

Within them, I began to see. And in a numbing shot of cold through my muscles, I began to realize the point of it all. I was waking up. My mind was regaining conscious thought.

Without my direction, my head moved back to its righted position. The woman I had been watching was no longer in my sight. She was nowhere to be seen. As I squinted, I could see that the barn door was open now. It was nauseatingly clear to me just what was happening.

I screamed, "Mom!"

And suddenly I was running, my feet pounding the wet grass as my run turned into a desperate sprint. My chest was heaving and my lungs burned. The sound of my heart beating against my rib cage thrummed in my ears, deafening me.

I reached the barn. My feet carried me inside the rickety building and the chilling of my blood caused my immediate stand-still. The woman was lying face down atop the old straw that covered the floor. Somehow I could see it in the darkness, as though it were not truly in the middle of the night.

A light from somewhere above my head illuminated it all. Slowly, I took steps toward her. Hand prints smeared the back of her nightgown with crimson blood, her once clean hair now matted and strewn.

My body was trembling violently when I reached her side. I knelt beside her, and I reached out to move the hair from the side of her face. As I pushed it back, her face was visible, her open eyes staring into me with an expression of pure terror.

I lurched upright with a terrified scream, groping the couch cushions for something to hold onto—for something to bring me back to reality. My heartbeat was still thrumming loud in my ears. I was breathing so hard, so fast, that I thought I might pass out.

But I didn't. My gaze swept over the apartment, eyes widened as I tried to tell myself where I was. I had done it again. I'd fallen asleep for too long. I knew better than to sleep at all, but somehow I'd let myself drift off—and I stayed there past my welcome.

Over the drumming in my ears, I heard an alarmed but faint, "Savannah?"

It came from the bedroom, I knew. My screaming had woken Dick up. I turned to look at the bedroom doorway at the sound of a quick shuffle. In less than a second, Dick appeared in the doorway. His hair was disheveled, pants barely all the way up on his hips.

He'd gotten up in a hurry, and it was not surprising. Despite it being the middle of the night, he looked wide awake and fully alert, visibly breathing faster than he should be. I felt an immediate pang of guilt hit my chest at the sight of him.

Dick's wild eyes quickly scanned the apartment before his head snapped in my direction, gaze landing on me at the couch. "Are you okay?" he asked, taking steps toward me. "What happened?"

"I'm so sorry. It was just a...it was a nightmare."

He sat in front of me on the couch, "When was the last time you had one that bad?"

"I don't know...a year, maybe? But this was different. I saw my mom. I was her, for a second," I spoke slowly, my mind not quite caught up with my body just yet. There was a moment of pause. I knew Dick was speaking, but I couldn't hear him.

I was too focused on my own train of thought. Focused on the image of my mother's lifeless, terror-filled eyes staring up at me from her bloodied body. It was all I could see. I was thrusted from the depths of my mind when something touched my hand.

My eyes shot down to my lap, where both hands laid, to find that Dick's hand now covered mine. I hadn't realized my hands were trembling until he was holding one still. "Hey, Anna, I'm here," he spoke softly, gently to me. "You're okay now. It's over."

"I need to go."

I'd spoken without much thought, abruptly pushing myself up to my feet from off the couch. I grabbed my jacket off the armrest of the couch and shoved my hands through the arm holes, pulling the fabric over my shoulders.

"Go? Go where?" Dick questioned, confused and concerned.

He stood, angling himself in front of me as if to block me from leaving the apartment. Dick knew better than anyone how I got when something like this happened. It started with a nightmare. Soon followed a late night walk.

During my walk, I would find a body. It was a simple routine that was all too familiar for both of us. Letting my hands fall to my sides, I finally met his gaze, "I just need to get out."

"It's two o'clock in the morning," he reminded me.

"And I need some air. I'll be back before you leave for work. I promise."

Closing the space between us, I rose up on my toes, gripping his shoulder in order to pull him down far enough to kiss his cheek. Then I skirted around him and headed to the apartment door.

Once I was outside the building, the cool night air splashed my face, sending a chill across my body. I buttoned my jacket up to my neck and pulled my mp3 player from my pocket. Maybe listening to music would help calm me down?

That was the hope, however unreachable it seemed at the time. I shoved the ear buds into my ears and turned on the player. It started playing Chopin's Nocturne no. 2 op. 9. My feet carried me down the street and around the corner as I listened.

Something about piano always eased my aggravated nerves. I didn't know quite what. But it always made me think of my mother, how my father had said she used to play the grand piano we kept in one of our sitting rooms.

It's still there—long after she'd last set foot in the house. I tried to combine the version of her i'd seen in my nightmare with the memories I had of that piano, tried to picture her playing it. I never knew her. At least, not in the way normal kids know their mothers.

Children know their mothers in the sound of her voice when she says 'i love you', how safe it feels when she hugs them. From day one a mother and her child have an unbreakable bond.

My mother and I didn't have the chance to form that kind of bond. Or any bond, at all. She was dead before I was crawling. My father never told me many details of her passing, but he always made up for it in the details he'd share of her life.

That was how I knew my mother—in details, memories, heartfelt stories. I knew her in pictures on the mantle, and that extra stocking we hung for her every year at Christmas. I knew her in the emptiness.

The song in my ears shifted, becoming quieter for a moment, before resuming its pace. It caused me a second of questioning, but it had gone too fast for me to truly notice. I was too deep in thought. Then, it happened again.

With the second time, it sound like a faint echo, lasting longer than the first. I pulled my mp3 player from my jacket pocket and pressed the center button to wake it. It would not light up the screen. Almost as if the player was off.

My eyebrows drew together in confusion, mere seconds before the music changed altogether in its quiet volume and echo-like reverberation. It sounded whimsical, childlike, but also dark and deranged. Something twinged in my stomach at the sound of applause.

The sudden change caused my head to snap up, my feet to halt in their places, and my eyes rounded as I realized I was no longer on the streets of Detroit. A bright sign lit up three words that made my heart stop—The Flying Graysons.

It was clear where I was due to my surroundings. I was at a circus. The sign only confirmed my worst fear. An odd sound caused me to tilt my head back, glancing upward. High up above were three people on the trapeze.

Two adults and one child. They flew through the air, flipping from bar to bar, with each other and alone in different impossible stunts. I began to shake my head, shuffling backward in slow steps.

"No...no, I don't want to see this!" I shouted, to whoever would listen.

This story was bad enough secondhand. I did not wish to see the full tragedy with my own two eyes. It wasn't until years after I'd met Dick that my father told me how he'd almost taken me to the circus that day, the day Dick lost his family.

My father ended up canceling at the last minute and instead left me home while he went back to the office. Knowing what I know now, I was glad that I stayed home in the end.

As I backpedaled, my heel bumped something hard. Whatever it was let out a hellish shrieking sound, causing me to lurch forward in surprise, twisting to see what it was. There was a black bird standing on the ground, tucking its wings back against its sides from nearly being stepped on.

Its beady eyes bore into my wide irises as it looked up at me, and I knew—it was the same bird. The black bird flapped its wings roughly before leaping up into the air, flying right in front of my face and over the top of my head.

I ducked to miss it. When I righted myself, I was forced to squint against a sudden light. A streetlight. Quickly, my eyes searched my surroundings as my veins flooded with adrenaline. There were buildings, roads, streetlights and the occasional vehicle passing by.

It was clear I was back in Detroit. But my chest still heaved from the rush of yet another nightmare. This time, I wasn't even asleep. I was wide awake, and that's what terrified me. It brought bumps to my clothed skin and an anxiety to my body.

Both of them felt so real. Both of them contained a black bird. What that meant for me, I did not know. I contemplated it on my trek back to Dick's apartment, but nothing came of it. I was only more confused than before.

None of it made sense due the randomness alone. What I'd seen tonight had nothing to do with people living, or people recently dead—it was all about people who had died many years ago.

I climbed the stairs of the building and let myself back into the apartment. Dick was asleep on the couch, slumped against the armrest like he'd fallen asleep waiting up for me. It wouldn't surprise me if he had. He'd done it before.

But that didn't stop me from feeling bad about it. Unlike me, Dick needed his sleep. Whenever he let me into his apartment, he didn't get any. The thought crossed my mind that maybe he should stop letting me in. That would certainly solve the problem.

That was unlikely to happen, though, so I ignored the thought as I crossed the threshold. I unbuttoned my jacket and draped it over the back of the couch. Carefully as not to wake him, I lowered myself onto the couch cushion, folding my left leg beneath me.

The youthfulness of his face made him look so peaceful when he slept. I exhaled deeply, trying to calm myself as I propped my elbow against the back of the couch, leaning my left temple against my knuckles. It'd been a long night. A night that was almost over.

A faint cyan was beginning to glow through the dirty windows of the apartment. I was not at all looking forward to my day job. Working in an office was never something I wanted, but it was something I agreed to out of necessity.

After a few moments of sitting, i went to the bedroom and pulled the blanket off the bed, then carried it back to the couch. I gently draped it over Dick's body before sitting back down in my place on the cushion.

It never bothered me—sitting in silence with nothing to do. My muscles never had a severe enough itch to move to be bothered by sitting still. I resumed my position against the back of the couch, angled toward Dick.

Watching him sleep was enough to pass the time. It wouldn't be long before the alarm would blare anyway. Looking at him made me think of what i'd seen—also, what i'd almost seen. Absentmindedly, I reached out and brushed his hair aside from his forehead.

It was then that the alarm started screaming in the bedroom, echoing out across the apartment. Dick stirred, "Remind me to reset that alarm clock."

He mumbled the words, gripping the blanket tight as he curled into the couch. Gliding my fingers through the hair at the back of his head, I sighed lightly. "I'll make breakfast while you get dressed," I spoke quietly, leaning forward to prop my chin on his shoulder.

"When did you get in?" Dick lifted his head, twisting a little to see me with his tired eyes.

I sat back a little, "Around four, i think."

"You've been sitting here watching me sleep for two hours?"

"Yeah. You get this crease in your forehead, and then the drooling starts-"

"Alright," Dick smiled, pushing the blanket off his torso as he sat up. "I'm gonna hit the shower. Have to wash off all that drool."

I chuckled a little as he pushed himself up off the couch, stretching as he took his first few steps toward the bedroom. Even just resting on that couch made my muscles stiff—I could only imagine how it felt to have slept there for hours.

That thought brought back the night's events in full color, right to the front of my mind, rather quickly. For a moment, it didn't bother me. It was like it had never happened. But when it shot back into my consciousness it brought with it the anxiety and unrest.

Already I could feel my lungs start to work just a little harder as I inhaled and exhaled faster with the memories in sight. Deep in thought, I hadn't noticed Dick was walking back toward the couch. Not until he leaned down and caught my lips with his own, snapping me back to reality.

I was a little surprised by the interruption of thought but I didn't mind it. He pulled away from me before I could truly reciprocate the action. Though, he did linger closely for a moment, before tilting his head with a smirk, "You could join me."

For a split second, I'd had no idea what on Earth he was talking about. Then it dawned on me that he had originally gone to take a shower and that this random phrase was an invite to shower with him.

Smiling a little, I placed my hand on the side of his face, swiping the pad of my thumb over his bottom lip. "Next time, Boy Wonder," I told him. "Someone has to make breakfast."

I could've told him, I suppose, that really I only needed room to think. I needed room to process what had happened, what I'd seen, and I couldn't focus on that while getting intimate with Dick. Or, vise versa, I couldn't be intimate with Dick having all this on my mind.

It would be unfair. He didn't seem bothered by my decline—he simply gave my lips another peck before walking back into the bedroom. As soon as he was gone, I felt myself almost completely deflate, my features slacking.

My mind was pulling me back to my previous thoughts, analyzing every second of my visions. I was trying to mentally pick it all apart. If one thing was clear from both visions, it was that the black bird had more to do with it than I'd originally gave credit for.

That much was shown in the role it played. Showing me my mother's name to wake me up, standing behind me at the circus—and something within its beady eyes said it wasn't my mind speaking to me in the visions, either.

The plan was to be at Dick's apartment at no later than nine pm. But, considering Dick wasn't even there when I arrived, it was alright that I was drastically late. I knew he was working late at the precinct—it wasn't uncommon for him to do so.

So I used my spare key to get in and sat around on the couch for a while. A while turned into a seemingly unending waiting period. I knew then that he wasn't working. I couldn't blame him, considering I wasn't late from being at the office either.

Knowing he was out and about as Robin hadn't made me feel safer for a long time. He hadn't put on the suit in over a year. Now he was out doing God knows what, and it worried me greatly. I knew he wasn't going to die. But I wasn't comfortable with him being hurt in any way.

These late night escapades usually ended in someone bleeding, being horrendously bruised, broken in two places, or all three at once. Being all hell was unleashed upon my life, he would come to my room at the estate when something like that happened.

Sometimes I was already asleep. So, instead of having to be woken to let him in, I'd left my balcony door unlatched. He'd slip into my bed beside me without a word—and he never needed to say anything for me to know what had happened.

Last night, I'd slipped out of my work clothes and put on one of his shirts, and climbed into his bed as though I might actually sleep. It calmed to me to be surrounded by his scent as though he were there.

I was fully awake as the sound of the door opening mixed with the alarm beside the bed. Immediately, I was on my feet, and I pattered out of the bedroom. Dick still at the table with his back to me, taking off his suit.

Loosely wrapping my arms around my torso, I took steps toward him. "You went out last night," I stated, as I came to stand at the side of the table.

"So did you," he replied, laying the chest piece on the table top.

There was a hint of bitterness in his words I hadn't quite expected. As more of the upper part of his suit came off, and his bare chest was clearly visible, the more I began to see the damaged from the night before.

A large bruise was forming on his left bicep and another as equally large on his chest. They looked painful, but I knew he wasn't bothered. Pulling myself up atop the table, I said, "At least I'm not covered in bruises."

At that, he pursed his lips and sighed heavily through his nose. "What did you get up to last night?" he questioned. Adding a little more bitterness, he continued, "You told me you were at the office."

"Funny, you told me the same thing."

"You know it's different."

"Right. Because not kicking any ass for over a year and then suddenly jumping back into it without warning is alright as long as it's you—your work is important," I tilted my head, expression narrowed.

Finally, he looked away from his suit parts, turning his head to give me an angered glare. We'd had this conversation before. If I went out—specifically, went out alone—someone was bound to end up dead. So, logically, there was an unspoken rule that stated I was not supposed to do that.

Dick could handle himself. He could kill if necessary. When I did it, there was a different kind of dark negativity attached to it that he'd created years ago. It forced me into a box of can's and cannot's, onto a tight rope of control.

"We both know you walk out that door specifically to kill people," he told me, staring me down with a hot intensity. "There's no one in trouble—it's just your own blood lust that needs satisfying."

"What did I get up to last night? Hm, maybe stopping a rapist? You know, before he could rape someone. And he's not dead, you fucking asshole."

I pushed myself off of the table, heading for the bedroom as soon as my feet touched the floor. He didn't bother speaking up and trying to smooth things over. He simply let me walk away. But that was Dick. He'd learned to give me space—even when I didn't truly need it.

My clothes were still folded up on the bed where'd I left them the night before. It was funny to think of how worried I'd been, how uneasy I'd felt, only for him to get home and not want to look at me.

Once I'd changed back into my clothes, I slid Beverly's glasses on from my purse and exited the bedroom. Dick was washing something in the sink. The smell of blood filled my nostrils as I got closer so I didn't bother asking.

As I got to the door, the water shut off. "Savannah," it was Dick's voice, not far behind me. With a heavy exhale, I turned around to face him. He still stood at the sink, eyeing me in indecision, before drying his hands and walking toward me. "Don't leave yet."

"Well, i'm sorry I missed the invitation to breakfast in your insult," I replied, dryly.

He gave me a look, coming to stand just in front of me, "You know I want you to stay."

"Maybe it feels good to hear you say it."

"Stay," gently, his fingers plucked the glasses from my face. "Please."

After breakfast at Dick's, I returned home to my own apartment. It was a somewhat small living space but I found it to be much more comfortable than my childhood home. I'd lived in a tiny cell in Arkham, and I hadn't quite felt comfortable in a small space until I moved in here.

Cerberus, the speckled cat that arrived at my window every night, was pawing at the glass as I walked through the front door. I locked up the door and quickly crossed the threshold to the window in the living room. "Sorry, little guy," I apologized, unlatching the window. "Forgot to leave this open."

My hand pushed the window up, and the opening allowed for not only the cat's entrance but also a cool morning breeze. It dusted over my skin, leaving bumps in its wake, and my mind once again found the memories from two nights ago.

Mother's death, the circus accident, the black bird—it all meant something. The timing of it meant something. I just didn't know what. Cerberus shook after hopping into my living room and then pattered toward the tiny kitchen.

I'd left the cat food dish on the counter, filled with his food, but I hadn't put it outside for him. He trotted into the kitchen, disappearing behind the island, then reappeared as he popped onto the counter by his dish.

Shaking my head, I made my way to the bedroom area in the corner. This apartment was a studio, so it lacked many walls inside, but that was alright. My body lurched in a startle as the sound of a knock at my door echoed through the apartment.

I hadn't been expecting any arrivals, so I was cautious in my approach to the door. "Who is it?" I called, a few inches from the door. I was leaned back on my heels, ready to move if necessary.

"You know who it is, Red."

With a heavy sigh, and a drop of my shoulders, I pulled open the door. "You have crap timing, you know that, right?" I questioned, rhetorically, as I gave a small glare.

Victor snorted before walking past me into my apartment, "You're one to talk on timing. I distinctly remember you being the one calling me at three am Saturday night, looking for another asshole."

Tossing my eyes, I closed and locked the front door. Victor, however much he complained about my random calls, did in fact enjoy having something to do. It was evident in the way he was so quick to comply with whatever I asked.

How fast he got me what I needed. I walked into the living room and weakly gestured to the couch. "Are you gonna sit or just stand there like a douchebag?" I asked, as I dropped into the chair opposite the couch.

"He's back, Savannah," Victor spoke seriously, his words enough to send a bolt down my spine. "He knows about Beverly—not that she's you, just that she's somehow involved. He's coming for you."

"How the hell did he find Bev?"

I often found myself speaking of my new identity as though she were a longtime friend of mine, as though she weren't actually me. Victor shook his head, exhaling through his nose. His response only aggravated me.

Leaning forward in my seat, my arms braced against my thighs, I locked my fingers to squeeze them together. It gave me a false sense of relief. Finally, Victor stepped around the couch and lowered himself down to take a seat across from me.

He mirrored my position before speaking, "I found the girl you were looking for—well, a girl like what you're looking for. The name Rachel Roth sound familiar?"

My eyes were downcast as I thought, mulling the name over in my mind. There was something about it that did in fact sound familiar. Like I'd heard it before somewhere. "A little, yeah," I nodded, glancing up. "Do you have a picture?"

Victor reached a hand into the fold of his coat, pulling it out a moment later to reveal a rectangular paper between his fingers. He leaned forward to hold it out to me and I took it a bit faster than I'd intended.

It was too much, not knowing. I was desperate for answers to so many questions. The photo now in my hands, I turned it over. The hairs at the nape of my neck stood tall as my eyes met those of the girl in the photo. It was her.

"Holy shit," I whispered.

"Must be who you were looking for."

I looked up at Victor, "Where is she now?"

"Traverse City is her home address," he answered, resuming his mirrored position. "Considering she's female, and a child, i'm going to assume the objective isn't to kill her."

"The objective is to get her out of my fucking head," I spoke the words through a clenched jaw, pushing myself to my feet.

I stepped around the couch and went to the bedroom side of the apartment—more specifically, to my closet. If traffic was fair, I could get to Traverse City and back before morning. So I began rummaging through my hanging clothes for something to change into.

Victor stood up from the couch, stepping around it to face me with a heavy sigh, "I know this is usually where my part in all of it ends—but she's a kid. What exactly are you gonna do?"

"I'm going to talk to her."

"Just talk? Doesn't sound like you."

"Jesus, Victor, I'm not going to hurt her," I turned my head to give him a wide-eyed expression of exasperation. "I need answers, and I'm not coming back until I get them."

I pulled up alongside the road, parking in front of the house Victor had directed me to. It was small, quaint—not exactly what I expected. Then again, I didn't really know what I expected. This was new territory for me.

Never had I felt connected to a living being, a living being that was also so young. She wasn't going to die. But the real reason for her being in my visions alluded me.

Shutting my car door, I walked around the front of the vehicle and made my way up the walkway to the front door. My foot stepped within four feet of the door and my body temperature dropped in a sudden disappearance of all heat.

It caused me to slow, but I didn't stop. I knew what that feeling meant—someone died here. Cautiously, I tried the front door, only to find it unlocked. That was the second indication of foul play. No reasonable person would leave their door unlocked.

Especially not in a neighborhood like this. Nice, quiet neighborhoods were the perfect targets for burglary. Not to mention it seemed like it was a little dirtier than it should be. Perfect target.

Slowly, I pushed the door open and took a careful step inside. Though it was highly unlikely she was here, I still called out, "Rachel?" There was no response, as expected. A twinge in my gut caught my attention and I felt myself being physically pushed forward.

My feet shuffled forward from a force against my back, through the living room toward the kitchen. There was nothing truly behind—only my body trying to show me something specific. I took a step into the kitchen, and that was all I needed.

Glass covered the floor, along with crimson blood that drained from a body two feet into the room. It was a woman, lying on her stomach, bleeding from her forehead. She'd been shot. I didn't have to look closer to know—I could feel it.

I could feel the tension in the small room. It covered the walls, the pictures of what had happened here. Slowly, I knelt down, and I reached out to take a piece of glass. The shards covering the tiles had come from the broken kitchen table.

The feelings I already had told me Rachel had broken it. But, when I picked up the glass, an image shot into my vision like a ray of sun. It was Rachel, standing just behind the table, screaming. Along with it came a strong mixture of unreadable emotions.

It felt extremely dark, so much so I was almost nauseous. The overwhelming shock of it all caused me to drop the glass almost immediately, and the sound of it clattering to the floor bounced off the walls in a metallic echo, so loud my ears burned.

The vibrant heat in my ear canals caused me to hiss loudly as my hands shot to my ears. Though I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, another image flashed against my eyelids. This one was only slightly different. It was the same scene.

Rachel lurched up from her chair, her eyes blackening as her body fluctuated. What came to me brought along with it more darkness—unrest and anger, in the form of a thousand screams in my ears. The screams were metallic as well.

They blurred together almost into one. It added more volume, more heat to my already burning ears. I cried out as the pain intensified but that did not stop the images. My muscles found it difficult to stand back up, as though the gravity in the room had been dialed to eleven.

The very fibers of my rib cage felt like they were being compressed the more I stood. It made it feel difficult to breathe, therefore causing my lungs to work faster, adding to the anxiety and nausea.

Something was very wrong in that room—in that whole house. Feeling what it had to offer was like opening the door to hell to hear the angered cries of the damned. There was no way those people were alive. Not with what I felt.

As quickly as possible, hands still covering my ears to no avail, I stumbled back through the living room toward the front door. I had to get out of that horror house. Moving toward the door only intensified it all, as though the house itself was trying to keep me inside.

It only unsettled and pained me more. I kept pressing on until I'd made it through the doorway to the outside. As soon as I was out on the walkway, the physical hold on me was lifted, along with whatever was trying to hold me down.

Therefore I was sent stumbling forward as the thing I fought against was no longer there, as though I were a rubber band someone had pulled tight and let fly like a bullet.

My lungs inflated fully, the vice on my ribs gone, and I breathed deeply as I walked quickly to my car. I only stopped moving when I held my palms up, letting them hit the side of my car to stop me from going any farther.

I rocked back on my heels. What I felt in that house was unlike anything I'd ever felt in my years of dealing with the dead. It left an uneasy, somewhat sour taste in my mouth. It took me a moment of breathing deeply to come down.

Once I was down, I was able to fully take in my surroundings. The sun was clearly in the early stages of setting. Streetlights were beginning to hum to life. I needed to get home. I needed to get away from here. Following the line of the car with my hands to stay upright, I made my way to the driver's side.

I pulled open the door and slid onto the seat behind the wheel, closing the door quickly behind me, as though that might shut out the way I now felt beneath my skin.

My heart leapt from my chest at the buzzing sound of my cell phone on the passenger seat. Immediately my eyes snapped to the right, staring at the device in alarm a second, before I realized what it was and relaxed.

Today was clearly not my day to feel at peace. I answered the call without looking at the ID, too busy putting the keys in the ignition to start the car. "This is Beverly," I answered.

"You're never gonna guess who I've got my eyes on right now."

It was Victor's crusty voice. I started the car and pulled onto the road, stepping on the gas to get away from the house as quickly as possible. "It's Rachel, isn't it?" I spoke rhetorically.

"How'd you guess?"

I sighed, "There's a dead woman in her kitchen—wasn't her, but it definitely scared the shit out of her. So the question is, why the hell is she in Detroit?"

"Maybe she's looking for you, too? Just a thought."

"Stop making sense, that's my role."

"Yeah, sure," he huffed a mild snort. "You better get your red ass back to the city before she disappears again. I'll tail her until you get here, make sure she's not getting into trouble."

"Thanks."

I ended the call and focused my attention on the road. There was no reasonable explanation for what I had seen and felt in that house. But, if I could catch up to Rachel, she'd most likely be able to shed some light on at least the gist of it.

The traffic wasn't too bad. Though, it still took me a couple hours to get back into Detroit. By then, it was dark, and just about the worst time for a teenage girl to be out wandering around alone.

Thankfully Victor would be keeping an eye on her, but I would feel more comfortable knowing someone else was watching her—someone with a cape. That would entail bringing Dick into the fold on my fiasco, and that was not yet something I wanted to do.

This was still manageable on my own—I didn't need him for anything other than his muscle right now. He could certainly wait. I was five minutes away from Victor's location when he called me again.

Still driving, I answered the call. "Hey, something weird's going on with the kid," Victor told me, immediately upon answering. "She threw a brick at a cruiser—looks like the cops are taking her in."

I had to work to keep myself from taking my only hand on the wheel off it to slap my palm against my forehead. It would make it easy, considering the precinct they would take her to was one I knew well, but it was difficult when you factor in Dick working there.

I groaned, "Alright. You can let off now. I've got it from here."

"Good luck, red."

Those were Victor's final words and then the line went dead. I ended my side of the call and tossed my phone into the passenger side before taking a sharp left to get onto the right road. I drove to the precinct and swerved into a parking space out front.

I barely turned the vehicle off before getting out and shutting the door. I was too close not to be in a hurry. Especially with her being arrested, I need to move fast to get ahead of whatever was going on.

My feet speed-walked into the main floor of the building and aimed straight for the stairs. I didn't have time for the elevator—I was already too far behind. My hand gripped the staircase railing, helping me drift around it to start up the stairs.

Three steps up and Dick walked around the corner from the higher set of stairs. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion upon seeing me, "Beverly? What are you doing here?"

"Where's Rachel?" I asked, reaching the landing he stood on.

"Hold on—you know her?" he questioned, bewildered. Then, turning serious, he lowered his voice, "Is this one of your premonitions? Is she going to get hurt?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but a sharp pain stabbed the right side of my neck. My hand shot to the area as I hissed in pain. "What the hell?" I spoke quietly, pulling my hand back to check for blood.

"Talk to me, what's going on?" Dick was desperate to understand, lost but concerned.

An urgency overcame me as it settled into my chest—the knowledge that she was in trouble. It was an unreadable thing that gripped me from the inside, pushing me to get moving. "Rachel's in trouble, Dick! Where is she?" I questioned, quickly.

"She's in an interrogation room upstairs. Come on."

He motioned briefly for me to follow before he turned on his heels to hurry back up the staircase he'd just come down from. I was hurrying along right behind him. I'd never met this girl in person. But there was something about being in someone's head that bonded you.

It felt like the people I knew were dying, like I knew her personally and I took her troubles personally. As though she were my own blood. Dick lead the way to the interrogation room. Up the stairs, through a door, and down a hall.

As we neared the door marked interrogation, it became clearer and clearer that said door was wide open. I knew it shouldn't have been by the way Dick's shoulders tensed and his steps slowed ever so slightly. It was unexpected and worrisome.

Whatever he was thinking, he kept to himself as he immediately started back down that hallway toward the stairs. He was almost running.

I followed him down the stairs and through the garage. The more my feet moved, the warmer my chest felt—like a game of hot and cold. My body knew we were getting closer before I did. There was an open door at the back of the garage.

Dick and I stepped through it just as a police cruiser began to drive by us. An overwhelming feeling of warmth in my chest was almost enough to burn as my eyes settled on the slumped form of Rachel, unconscious in the back seat of the cruiser.

But noticing her did nothing, for the vehicle was already going too fast to stop on such short notice, and it kept driving toward the exit of the parking lot. My eyes were stuck on the cruiser and I found myself unable to move my feet.

I could barely breathe, even though my chest was heaving in oxygen. Something was not right. It was like a fiery flame in my chest painfully being put out with a crushing weight of worry. It made me want to scream.