Page 6 of Hunt Me
The espresso sits forgotten as my mind races through possibilities. Random student who recognized me? Unlikely—wrong body language. Federal agent? No, they lack subtlety, andshe’s all controlled grace. A competitor trying to poach Ivanov’s secrets? Maybe, but the smile doesn’t fit.
That smile is pure amusement.
Like she knows something I don’t.
Like she’s playing a game, and I just realized I’m a piece on the board.
My laptop screen dims from inactivity. I don’t move to wake it. All my attention has narrowed to that corner booth, to platinum blonde hair and a smile I can feel even though I can’t quite see it.
The café noise fades—espresso machines hissing, students complaining about problem sets, someone’s terrible indie playlist bleeding from cheap headphones. All of it becomes white noise.
There’s only her.
And the electric certainty that everything just changed.
I push back from the table.
If someone’s watching me, I want to know why. And that smile—fuck, that smile—has been needling under my skin for the past five minutes like a splinter I can’t reach.
I leave the laptop open. Statement of intent: I’m not running, just... investigating.
Three steps toward her booth, and she moves.
Not panicked. Not rushed. She simply closes the textbook and stands in one seamless motion, like she’d been waiting for exactly this moment.
Her hair covers her face, so I don’t get a glimpse of it.
Then she’s gone.
Not walking—flowing through the café crowd like water finding cracks in stone. Students part without realizing they’re moving, and she’s already at the door before my brain catches up to what just happened.
“Fuck.”
I’m moving before conscious thought kicks in, weaving through tables with considerably less grace. A freshman’s backpack catches my hip. Someone’s latte nearly becomes a casualty.
“Watch it, asshole!”
I don’t apologize.
The door swings open, and cold November air slaps my face. Massachusetts Avenue spreads before me—busy afternoon traffic, students everywhere, the usual chaos of a Thursday near campus.
No platinum blonde.
I scan left, right, across the street. Nothing. She’s just... gone.
“What the fuck?”
A group of students flows past, headed toward the T station. I check between them, around them. Check the bookstore entrance fifty feet down. The coffee shop across the street. Every doorway, every alcove.
Nothing.
It’s like she vanished into thin air. Like she was never there at all.
Except she was. I saw her. Felt her eyes on me. Saw that smile that suggested she knew every secret I’ve ever buried in encrypted files.
My pulse hammers against my ribs. Not from the brief chase—from the absolute impossibility of someone disappearing that completely, that quickly, in broad daylight on a crowded street.
I pull out my phone, already opening the café’s security feed I shouldn’t have access to. My fingers fly across the screen, pulling up the last ten minutes of footage.
