1 When I was nine years old, my older brother, Garrett, assaulted our upstairs neighbor. The night the police led him out in handcuffs, the entire apartment complex gathered in the stairwells and balconies to watch the spectacle. Some people spat and called him an animal. Others whispered into the dark, wondering aloud what the girl had done to invite it—after all, why would a quiet boy like Garrett fixate on her if she hadn't given him some kind of signal? Nora never survived those whispers. Three months later, she walked up to the rooftop of the county hospital and jumped. Garrett was sentenced and sent away. My mother cried until her retinas tore, nearly losing her sight, and my father suffered a stroke that left the entire right half of his body dragging like dead weight. For years afterward, I lay awake wondering: If I had only stood in front of that door, if I had only found a way to stop him, could all those ruined lives have stayed whole? When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the entryway of our old apartment. Garrett was standing on the worn welcome mat, tying the laces of his sneakers. He glanced down at me, his expression casual, mundane. "Hazel, I’m heading out to grab a couple of beers with some guys from work," he said. "Go to bed early, okay?" I lunged forward, slamming my small back against the heavy metal front door. My breath came in ragged, jagged gasps as I looked up at him. "You're not going anywhere," I said, every word clipped and hard. "You are not leaving this apartment tonight." Garrett’s hand remained frozen on the deadbolt. He blinked, stunned by my sudden fury, and then let out a low, patronizing chuckle. "Hazel, what is wrong with you?" I cut my eyes toward the wall clock. The plastic hands ticked steadily toward eight-forty. I remembered the timeline as if it were branded into my skin. In my past life, he had stepped out the door at nine-five. At nine-forty-eight, the first scream had echoed down from the sixteenth floor. By ten-twenty-seven, the flashing red and blue lights of patrol cars had painted our rain-streaked living room windows. I spread my arms wide, wedging my heels firmly against the bottom crack of the frame, my entire nine-year-old frame trembling violently. Garrett looked down at me, his smile thinning. "Three minutes ago, you were begging me to bring you back an ice pop from the bodega. Now you're playing guard dog?" My throat closed up, tight and burning. "Don't go, Garrett. You're going to the sixteenth floor tonight, aren't you?" The remnants of his smile vanished instantly. In that fraction of a second, the sudden, dead stillness in his eyes told me everything. I was right. Nora Walsh lived in 16B. She was an emergency room nurse at the downtown hospital, working brutal, unpredictable night shifts. A month earlier, I had taken a nasty spill on the asphalt courtyard downstairs, ripping my knees open. It was Nora who had knelt beside me on the concrete, cleaning the gravel from the scrapes and bandaging the cuts with practiced, tender hands. Her fingers had been cool against my skin, her voice impossibly gentle. It’s okay to cry when it hurts, little one, she had told me. You don't have to be brave for anybody. In my first life, I had let that gentle woman walk straight into a nightmare. This time, I refused to play dumb. Garrett’s grip on the door handle slowly loosened. "Who told you that?" I shook my head violently. "It doesn't matter who told me. Just leave Nora alone. She doesn't like you, Garrett. She never did." Garrett’s face darkened, shifting into a shadow I had only ever seen in courtroom photographs. "What do you know about anything? She's a woman walking home alone in the middle of the night. I was just worried about her safety." My eyes burned with hot, bitter tears. "The only thing she isn't safe from is you." Slap. Garrett slammed his car keys down onto the wooden console table. The sharp crack made my shoulders flinch, but I didn't move an inch. He bent down until his face was level with mine, his breath smelling faintly of cheap mints. "Hazel, I’m your brother," he hissed. "You're taking a stranger's side over your own family?" I stared straight into his eyes. In my past life, our family had done nothing but protect him. After his arrest, I was the pariah at school, the girl kids pointed at in the hallway while whispering, That’s the rapist’s sister. My mother had dropped to her knees on Nora’s parents' porch, begging them through tears to sign a plea of leniency. My father had spent the rest of his functional days muttering that he was the failure, that he had raised a monster. Back then, caught between terror and shame, I had still clung to the childish notion that he was my big brother. But after Nora jumped, all of that evaporated. That was a human life. A real, breathing, luminous life snuffed out because of his rotten entitlement. I balled my fists. "If you stop right now, Garrett, you can still turn back." He let out an ugly, humorless laugh. "Turn back? I haven't done anything. What the hell am I supposed to turn back from?" He reached out to shove me aside. The moment his fingers grazed my shoulder, I dropped to the floor, wrapping both arms around the leg of the heavy shoe bench, screaming at the top of my lungs: "You're not leaving! I won't let you!" His patience snapped. He grabbed my wrists, his fingers digging in with brutal force, dragging me across the linoleum. Pain flared through my arms. "Garrett Miller!" I screamed his full name for the first time in my life. "What's in that black duffel bag?" His hands froze. I scrambled forward, lunging toward the black canvas bag sitting on the bench. The zipper was pulled half-open. Just as my fingertips brushed the coarse fabric, Garrett grabbed the scruff of my collar and yanked me off my feet, dangling me like a ragdoll. "Don't touch that," he warned, his voice dropping into a register that was entirely devoid of warmth. "Then show me what's inside!" His eyes narrowed into slits. "Mom and Dad aren't home, Hazel. Don't make me hurt you." The tears spilled over my cheeks. Mom and Dad aren't home. That was the sole reason he had chosen tonight. Mom had gone upstate for a regional conference, and Dad had driven with her to help with the long highway commute, promising they’d be back by Sunday. Before walking out the door, Mom had cupped my face, telling me over and over to be a good girl and listen to my older brother. In my last life, I had listened. I had been so obedient that an atrocity walked right past me in our hallway, and I hadn't asked a single question. I tilted my head back, my voice shaking with raw desperation. "Garrett, please. I'm begging you, don't do this. I had a nightmare. I saw the police taking you away. I saw Nora dead. I saw our family falling apart until there was nothing left. I'm scared. I don't want to lose you." Garrett stared at me. The word police seemed to strike a nerve; a faint twitch pulled at the corner of his jaw. Slowly, the menace drained from his posture, and he crouched down, reaching out to smooth my hair. It was the familiar gesture of the brother who used to carry me on his shoulders. But his palm was clammy, cold as ice. "Hazel, stop making things up in your head," he whispered softly. "I'm just going up there to talk to her. That's all." I met his hollow gaze. "If you're just talking, why did you pack a bag?" 2 Garrett slowly shifted the black duffel behind his back. "You're acting strange tonight," he murmured, his eyes searching my face with suspicious intensity. "Did someone say something to you?" I didn't answer. My mind was racing, calculating how to reach a phone. There was the landline mounted on the kitchen wall. And before leaving, our parents had placed an old prepaid flip phone in the living room drawer, strictly for emergencies. Garrett must have caught the dart of my eyes toward the television stand. He moved with chilling efficiency. Walking past me, he pulled open the drawer, pocketed the flip phone, and with a single sharp jerk, ripped the landline cord straight out of the kitchen wall jack. A wave of cold dread washed down my spine. "You're afraid I'll call the cops?" He glanced back at me, entirely composed now that he had neutralized the threat. "I just don't want you throwing a tantrum." The calmer he acted, the more terrified I became. Because I knew what the detectives had uncovered from his room in my previous life. It wasn't just the contents of that duffel bag. It was a spiral notebook filled with twenty-two days of meticulous surveillance: Nora’s morning and evening shift schedules, the precise minutes she walked through the complex gates, which parcel locker she used, and which sections of the sixteenth-floor stairwell had broken security bulbs. This had never been an impulse. It was a calculated hunt. I looked down, forcing my voice into a small, submissive whine. "I’m thirsty. Can I have some water?" Garrett eyed me warily. "The pitcher is on the counter." "I want warm water. The kettle's too heavy for me to reach." He clicked his tongue in irritation, shoved the duffel beneath his bed in the adjoining room, and turned toward the kitchen. The faucet hissed as he turned on the tap. The second his back was turned, I bolted into his bedroom. The duffel bag was shoved deep beneath the bed frame, only the nylon strap peeking out. I dropped to my stomach, hauling on the strap with all my strength. The bag was heavy. I yanked the zipper down, and its contents spilled across the floor under the dim bedside lamp. A pair of heavy black utility gloves. A roll of wide duct tape. Disposable plastic shoe covers. Two flat, filed-down tension wrenches. A pair of wire nippers. And underneath it all, a hand-drawn floor plan of the sixteenth floor. The elevator vestibule, the fire exit door, the corridor light switches, the electrical breaker panel, the front door of Unit 16B. At the bottom of the page, a single line was written in his neat, slanted handwriting: Rainy night. Renovation noise from the floor above. Nobody will check. I grabbed the metal lock-picking shims, shoving them deep into the front pocket of my school cardigan, snatched the roll of tape, and scrambled to my feet. Garrett was standing in the doorway. He held a glass of steaming water in one hand, his face pale and contorted with rage. "Give them to me." I backed away toward the window. "Garrett, don't do this. If you walk out that door, your life is over." He slammed the glass onto the nightstand. Hot water sloshed over the edge, dripping onto the floorboards with a steady tap, tap, tap. "Who put these ideas in your head?" he snarled, stepping into the room. "Was it Nora? Did she tell you to spy on me?" "Nobody told me anything!" I cried. "You're doing something terrible, and you know it!" He closed the distance between us in two strides. "What did I do that was so wrong? I bought her coffee; she threw it in the trash. I sent her messages; she left me on read. I waited downstairs just to walk her to her door, and she crossed the street like I was garbage! I just want to look her in the eye and ask why she thinks she's too good for me!" "She doesn't owe you anything!" I screamed. Garrett raised his hand, his face twisted in fury. I flinched, squeezing my eyes shut. The blow didn't land. Instead, his fingers clamped around my collarbone, pinning me against the wall as he roughly plunged his hand into my cardigan pocket, tearing the metal shims from my grip. "You're nine years old," he spat, his voice shaking with venomous condescension. "You don't know a damn thing about women. You don't know what real feelings are." Pain radiated through my bruised shoulders as tears blinded me. "I know she's terrified of you! I know what you're doing is a crime!" The word crime broke whatever thin tether of restraint he had left. He clamped a hand over my mouth, cutting off my scream, and dragged me out of the bedroom and down the short hallway toward the storage room—the tiny, windowless box where we kept outgrown winter coats and broken toys. I kicked wildly, my fingernails raking across the back of his hand. He cursed, shoving me violently into the dark room. The door slammed shut. Outside, I heard the metallic rattle of an old bicycle chain sliding through the door handles, followed by the heavy, decisive click of a padlock. "Garrett!" I hammered on the hollow wood until my palms bruised. "Let me out! Garrett!" His voice came through the crack, low and muffled. "Hazel, I don't want to hurt you. Just stay quiet until I get back." "You're going to kill her!" I screamed into the wood. "You're going to destroy everything!" Silence settled on the other side. Then came the sound of his deliberate footsteps. The rustle of his jacket. The rattle of his keys. The heavy clunk of the apartment's front deadbolt turning. And then, the outer door clicked shut. The apartment went entirely silent, save for the rhythmic drumming of torrential rain against the outer walls. I slid down against the locked door, burying my face in my knees. In my previous life, at this exact moment, I had been curled up on the couch watching cartoons while Garrett peeled an orange for me. Don't wait up for me, Hazel, he had said with a smile. And I hadn't. And Nora Walsh had stepped out of the elevator straight into hell. 3 The storage closet was pitch-black. The electrical wiring in our old building was ancient; heavy rainstorms frequently tripped the breakers. But I knew I couldn't afford to sit in the dark and cry. Tears were useless. In my past life, I had cried for ten years, and not a single tear had brought Nora back from the pavement outside the hospital. I scrambled across the dusty floor, feeling through the cardboard boxes until my fingers found an old metal wire hanger. I bent the hanger straight, leaving a small, rigid hook at the very tip, and dropped to my stomach. Slipping the wire through the narrow gap beneath the door, I angled it upward, blindly fishing for the dangling loop of the bicycle chain. The first try, the wire scraped against empty air. The second try, the hook caught the metal links, but my sweaty fingers slipped, and the chain swung back against the wood with a faint clink. My heart hammered in my throat like a trapped bird. Outside, the muffled groan of the building's ancient elevator cables echoed through the walls. Was he already on his way up? Was Nora already walking down the hallway? I bit my lower lip until I tasted copper, steadying my trembling hands. The sharp edge of the wire dug into the crook of my thumb, drawing a line of warm blood that trickled down my wrist. I ignored the sting. Once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth attempt, the hook caught firmly. I held my breath, slowly twisting the wire to lift the loop off the external latch handle. Clatter. The chain slipped free, tumbling onto the living room floor. I shoved the door open and burst out. The living room was deserted. The severed telephone cord dangled uselessly from the wall. I ran to the hallway shoe cabinet, reaching for the very top shelf where my mother kept a spare set of building keys inside an old tin biscuit box. In my haste, my elbow clipped the tin; it clattered to the floor, spilling coins and safety pins everywhere. I didn't stop to look. I grabbed the master key ring and bolted out into the public stairwell. The overhead lights in the hallway flickered once, buzzed violently, and went completely dark. My stomach dropped. It was happening exactly as it had before. Garrett had opened the utility panel and cut the sixteenth-floor lighting circuit first. In total darkness, no one could identify his face. In total darkness, Nora would think it was just another mundane power outage in an old, neglected building. I flew down the concrete stairs, skipping steps two at a time. Halfway down, my left slipper flew off into the darkness, and my bare knee slammed hard against the sharp edge of a concrete riser. The impact sent a jolt of nauseating pain shooting up my leg, but I scrambled up on all fours and kept running. The ground-floor lobby security desk was empty. Frank, the aging night guard, was likely out back clearing the storm drains. I shoved through the heavy glass exterior doors, plunging straight into the torrential downpour. Rain instantly soaked through my thin clothes, plastering my hair to my face as I stumbled across the flooded asphalt toward the bright neon sign of the corner convenience store across the lane. Mrs. Higgins was just pulling down the metal rolling shutter when I crashed into the glass counter, nearly collapsing on the wet mat. "Hazel?" she gasped, dropping her keys. "Good lord, child, what are you doing out in this weather? Where are your folks?" I grabbed the edge of the counter, fighting for enough oxygen to form words. "Phone... Mrs. Higgins, please, I need your phone to call 911." She stared at me, bewildered. "What on earth happened?" "My brother is going to hurt someone! He's breaking into an apartment right now!" Her face drained of color. Without asking another question, she slid the heavy landline receiver across the counter. I punched in 911. The moment the operator's voice crackled through the line, a strange, crystalline calm settled over me—the exact rhythm and cadence of the testimony I had listened to across dozens of court hearings in my past life. "Oakridge Apartments, Building Six," I said, my voice steady and unyielding. "Apartment 16B. The resident is Nora Walsh, an ER nurse who lives alone. My brother, Garrett Miller, thirty-five years old, wearing a black hooded jacket and carrying a black duffel bag, is breaking in. He has lock picks, utility gloves, and heavy duct tape. He left the ninth floor less than five minutes ago. He tampered with the floor's electrical panel. Please hurry." The dispatcher's tone instantly shifted from routine to urgent. "Sweetheart, where are you right now? Are you in a safe place?" "I’m at the corner market across from the gate. But Nora isn't safe. You have to send units right now." Beside me, Mrs. Higgins had already picked up her mobile phone, dialing the building's maintenance line. "Frank! Wake up! Get to Building Six, sixteenth floor right now! Move your ass!" I didn't wait. I grabbed Mrs. Higgins's mobile phone from the counter, rapidly tapping out a ten-digit number from memory. It was a phone number I had stared at for years in old case files, a number that had once belonged to a girl whose parents wept until they had no tears left. The line rang seven times. Eight times. Finally, a breathless, exhausted voice answered. "Hello?" Tears burst from my eyes, hot against the freezing rain on my cheeks. "Nora! Don't go to your apartment!" There was a long pause. "Who is this?" "It's Hazel, from 9B! You bandaged my knee last month! My brother is outside your door right now. He brought tools to force the lock. He didn't come to talk to you—he's trying to break in!" The line fell dead silent. Then, through the speaker, I heard the faint, cheerful chime of an elevator arriving at its floor. Nora’s voice dropped into a panicked whisper. "I... I just stepped off the elevator." Every drop of blood in my veins turned to ice. "Get back inside!" I screamed into the receiver. "Press the button for the lobby! Don't get out!" Her breath hitched. "The doors are already open. Hazel... all the hall lights are out." In the very next second, a familiar, smooth voice drifted through the receiver from the darkness of the hallway. "Nora. You're finally home." 4 Nora didn't reply. "Nora! Get back in the elevator! Push the door close button!" I shrieked into the phone. A burst of harsh static exploded through the earpiece, followed by the sickening, metallic scrape of someone bracing a boot against the rubber elevator safety sensor. I heard Nora’s sharp, terrified gasp. Then the call went dead. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. Mrs. Higgins lunged forward, grabbing an umbrella and catching me by the arm. "The police are on their way, Hazel! You stay right here!" I twisted out of her grip with all the strength in my small body. "I can't! I know where he's going!" The patrol cruisers arrived far faster than they had in my past life. Piercing red and blue strobes sliced through the curtain of rain, illuminating the deep puddles across the driveway in violent flashes. Two patrolmen and a female officer leapt out before the vehicles had fully stopped. Mrs. Higgins waved her umbrella, shouting directions. Drenched and shivering, I sprinted straight up to the female officer, grabbing her tactical vest. "Sixteenth floor!" I gasped. "He cut the lights by the emergency stairwell breaker! He's already outside her door!" The officer looked down at my soaked, desperate face, registering the sheer terror in my eyes. "Are you the one who called dispatch?" I nodded furiously. "Stay behind us," she commanded. "Do not push forward." I nodded, but my feet were already moving toward the building entrance. Inside the lobby, the elevator indicator was frozen on fifteen. Frank, the night super, came running from the basement corridor clutching a heavy industrial flashlight, sweat and rain dripping from his graying brow. "The damn car is jammed between floors! And the sixteenth-floor power is dead—I shouted up the shaft, but nobody answered!" A terrible knot tightened in my chest. In my previous life, several neighbors had later admitted to hearing strange noises in the hallway that night. But because the storm was loud, because the hallway was dark, and because nobody wanted to get involved in what they assumed was a domestic dispute, they had turned up their televisions. Their hesitation had formed the scaffold of Nora’s destruction. Not this time. "Take the stairs! Move!" the lead officer ordered. We charged up the concrete stairwell in a single file. I gripped the icy steel handrail, taking the steps as fast as my bruised legs could carry me. My bare left foot was scraped raw, a mixture of grit and blood smearing against the concrete, but the adrenaline surging through me completely drowned out the pain. Twelfth floor. Thirteenth. Fourteenth. The female officer glanced back over her shoulder. "Kid, stop here. It's not safe." I shook my head, my chest heaving for air. "I know which door is hers. I know the layout." Seeing the fierce, unyielding resolve in a nine-year-old's eyes, she didn't waste time arguing, signaling for Frank to keep a protective arm behind me. When we breached the fire door to the sixteenth floor, the corridor was as black as the bottom of a well. The beam of the officer's flashlight swept across the wall, landing immediately on the open electrical utility cabinet. The metal door hung loose, several heavy gauge wires severed and dangling. "Intentional sabotage," the patrolman murmured grimly, drawing his service weapon. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. At the very end of the corridor, the door to Apartment 16B stood slightly ajar. Fresh, splintered gouges marred the painted wooden frame around the deadbolt. Lying on the floorboards right outside the threshold was a single white nursing clog. My breath caught in my throat. I recognized that shoe. It had been Exhibit A in the criminal trial, photographed cold and sterile under the harsh fluorescent lights of the county evidence locker. The lead officer raised a hand, signaling for absolute silence. We moved forward like ghosts. Through the crack in the door, a low, menacing voice drifted out into the hallway. "...Just shut up and listen to me. I just wanted to make things clear between us." Then came Nora’s voice, raw, ragged, and shaking with furious tears. "Get out... Garrett, get the hell out of my home!" Tears of immense, crushing relief sprang to my eyes. She was conscious. She was fighting back. We were in time. The patrolman positioned his boot to kick the door inward. But a memory struck me like a physical blow—in my past life, Garrett had engaged the internal security chain, delaying the initial intervention just long enough to cause catastrophic harm. I pointed a trembling finger at the door gap. "The interior chain! He might have hooked the security chain!" The female officer immediately signaled Frank, who fumbled with his maintenance belt and passed forward a compact steel pry bar. From inside the apartment came a dull, sickening thud, like a body being shoved hard against drywall. I couldn't hold it in any longer. I leaned toward the door and screamed with everything left in my lungs: "Nora! The police are here!" The room inside fell instantly, dead silent. A second later, Garrett's voice erupted from within, cracked and hysterical: "Hazel?!" The officer drove his boot into the door. The wood shuddered violently. The steel pry bar wedged into the gap, and with a terrible screech of tearing metal, the brass security chain snapped cleanly off the jamb. The door flew open, rebounding hard against the wall. Following right behind the officers, I crossed the threshold of the room that had swallowed Nora Walsh whole in another life—and watched the darkness shatter under the flood of police flashlights.
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