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CHAPTER 1

Jubilee

I’m just asking for a serial killer to find me.

Because running alone in Chicago late at night isn’t my greatest life choice. But it’s still safer than going home.

The sky is a bruised canopy of clouds, shedding a full-blown rainstorm of punishing sheets, turning the cracked asphalt into slick, oily rivers reflecting the bleeding neon of liquor store signs. It’s the kind of violent weather that sends normal people locking their doors and turning up the heat.

Welp. I’m definitely not going back yet.

My sneakers slap the wet pavement. It might be July, but cold rain soaks my clothes. I lean into it anyway, welcoming the biting cold. And the deep, aching burn in my thighs and the ragged tearing of air in my lungs.

Physical pain is simple. It’s clean. A hell of a lot better than the helplessness and rage that usually choke me the moment I enter my apartment on a Friday night.

My tongue darts forward, the small metal ball of my tongue piercing clicking against my front teeth. It’s an anxious habit I developed a year ago, and right now, it’s acting as a pounding metronome for my furious heart.

I push myself, turning onto a narrow alleyway that smells of garbage, rust, and ozone. This isn’t about fitness—if it were, I’d be at a gym with normal lighting and less chance of getting murdered. It’s a break from the inescapable, rotting cycle of my life.

I left the apartment at exactly ten forty-five. Because at eleven, the arrogant knock thunders against our thin front door. I leave before our landlord’s cheap cologne, stale cigarette smoke, and entitlement reeks all over our apartment. His smile is always an open wound, revealing yellowed teeth. He doesn’t only come to “collect the rent.” He comes to collect on the disgusting debt my mother has no choice but to let him cash in on week after week.

He arrives at eleven. He leaves at midnight.

By this time, my mother is usually passed out on our faded floral sofa, which smells like cheap vodka and deep-seated regret. And yet, she’s alarmingly beautiful.

I keep running. It’s doing wonders for my calves, even if it’s destroying my soul.

The rain falls harder, a relentless drumbeat against my skull. My oversized, heavy, dark hoodie swallows any curve of my body, paired with plain black leggings, sticking to my skin as the rain plasters my unnatural black hair down the sides of my face like a mourning veil. I imagine the cheap eyeliner as jagged trails of bruises staining my pale cheeks. Everything about me is basically one jump-scare away from starring in my own horror movie.

Our landlord wrinkles his nose in disgust when he sees me. Asshole guys who occasionally smoke pot outside the apartment complex mutter insults at me.

The dark, baggy clothes, the thick, black hair, the tongue piercing, the small teardrop tattoos inked high on the side of my eye—temporary, but it’s all armor to keep the predators at bay. The world wants soft, compliant girls. They want easy targets.

The sick irony? “It’s all bullshit,” I mutter.

I wear the armor because the world demands it. I build the walls higher and thicker. I’ve worn this outcast disguise so long, and lately, a cold terror has started to creep along the back of my neck. I don’t know if I can take the mask off anymore. I don’t know if the girl underneath exists anymore, or if she suffocated to death a long time ago.

The girl of horses, antiques, and cosplay medieval dresses.

I shake the thoughts away, refusing to let the melancholy take root. Feminine wrath burns hotter than ice-cold manic depression.

Up ahead, the flickering glow of the streetlights ends. The cracked sidewalk gives way to a sudden, wild invasion of nature. This is my sanctuary—one of those weird patches of preserved wilderness squeezed between a defunct warehouse and a crumbling retaining wall. This labyrinth of old oak trees and untamed dirt trail is my favorite jogging spot.

I don’t slow when my shoes hit the mud. The sounds of the city fade, swallowed by the dense trees. Here, the air smells different than car exhaust. The earthy scent of petrichor, rotting leaves, and wet earth fills my nostrils.

The darkness closes in like a fist. But I find it comforting. Nobody can see me. I’m a shadow of shadows. I know this trail by heart. I jog from pure muscle memory, my breath a steady rhythm.

Then, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. My inner feminine radar—fine-tuned by years of living on high alert—spikes.

Footsteps. Heavy. Steady. Coming from the opposite direction.

I reach toward the cold, hard tactical folding knife tucked into my waistband. My heart hammers. I slow my pace slightly, my vision straining through the downpour.

A figure materializes from the gloom. He’s jogging, his stride long and effortless for a man his size. He looks like somebody crossed a lumberjack with a tattoo artist and tossed in a magazine-worthy model for good measure. Rugged, handsome features. Broad shoulders. Dark beard. Rain-dark hair in a messy man bun over a high tight fade. Tattoos climbing both arms.

Objectively dangerous to my blood pressure and lady parts. Fortunately, I’m busy having an existential crisis.

As he passes through a small patch of moonlight filtering through the canopy, our eyes lock. He moves with a relaxed, lethal grace, which makes every alarm bell in my head scream. He slows his pace a fraction, then tilts his head. “On a scale of one to serial killer, how worried should I be that you’re out here alone?” he teases.