We burst out of a side exit onto a dark, flooded alleyway.

I looked back through the rear window, but the rain obscured the clinic.

“Where are we going?” I asked, rubbing my cold hands together.

“A safe place,” Vincent said.

He was already on his phone, his thumb tapping the glowing screen.

“Brooklyn,” he said to the driver.

The driver nodded and turned onto the main avenue.

The rain beat against the bulletproof windows in a steady, deafening rhythm.

The streetlights of Manhattan blurred into yellow streaks as we sped past.

I stared down at my hands, my chest tight.

My fingers kept drifting back to my neck.

The emptiness there felt like a physical weight.

“Paul will go back to the apartment,” I said, my voice barely audible.

Vincent did not look up from his phone.

“He is a coward, Lena,” he said.

“He is desperate,” I said. “And my mother’s locket is there.”

“A piece of silver is not worth your life.”

“It is all I have,” I said, a tear slipping down my cheek. “He took everything else.”

Vincent finally looked at me.