The sky above Via delle Mimose 18 was the color of molten lead.
The air hung still and heavy, thick with a silence that felt like it could shatter at any moment.
Even the birds were quiet, as if they had sensed something humans could not yet feel.
Adrian stopped the car in front of the small villa.
The garden was overgrown with fallen leaves, an old swing creaked lazily, moved by a wind that wasn't there. Through the living room curtains flickered a warm, trembling light. Behind it, a woman's shadow moved, hesitant, slow, then still again.
Clara stared at it for several seconds.
"She's there," she whispered.
Adrian nodded. He gripped the steering wheel, closing his eyes for a moment, as if trying to hear beyond what his eyes could see. Then he exhaled and said quietly, "Stay close to me. I don't like the way this place feels."
Clara's voice was steady. "If there's danger, I'm not running from it. You know that."
Adrian's mouth curved in a faint, resigned smile.
"That's exactly what scares me, Clara. The fact that you always stay, even when you shouldn't."
They climbed the three steps of the porch and rang the bell. The sound echoed through the house like a breath being held.
Then came the sound of hesitant footsteps and the soft click of the lock.
The door opened a crack. A woman in her thirties, Giulia Valenti, stared at them with wide, tired eyes. Her hair was dark, tied back messily, her skin pale as porcelain.
"Yes?"
Adrian held up an ID. "Good evening. I'm Dr. Adrian M., criminologist. This is Dr. Clara Voss, psychiatric consultant. May we speak with you for a moment?"
Giulia frowned.
"I've already talked to the police. Some officer named Ferretti. He left me his card, said I should call if anything strange happened."
Clara and Adrian exchanged a quick look.
"Could we see the card?" Adrian asked gently.
Giulia disappeared behind the door for a few seconds and returned with a small white business card, slightly bent at the corners.
Adrian took it.
The moment his eyes met the name, a chill ran through him.
LUCA FERRETTI – Behavioral Analysis Unit – Chief Investigator.
Clara caught his gaze. She didn't have to speak.
"Do you know him?" Giulia asked softly.
Adrian hesitated. "I used to."
Giulia nodded. "He seemed kind. Said someone's targeting former patients from the Mnemosyne Clinic. Told me to call him if I noticed anything unusual. He said he'd keep me safe."
Adrian's jaw tightened. "And have you noticed anything?"
"Sometimes I hear footsteps outside," she murmured. "In the garden. But when I open the door… there's no one there."
Clara stepped closer, her tone calm and reassuring.
"May we come in?"
Giulia hesitated, then opened the door wider. "Please. I'm sorry for the mess."
Inside, the house was small and warm, filled with a fragile kind of order. White curtains filtered the faint afternoon light. Books and medicine bottles lined the table.
On the couch, a folded blanket, a life stitched together from small, steady rituals.
"How long have you lived here?" Adrian asked.
"Two years. After the clinic, I didn't want to see anyone. My parents died. My friends drifted away. Depression has a way of emptying your life until all you hear is the echo of your own thoughts."
Clara's gaze softened. "Not everyone leaves. Some people stay, even when they shouldn't."
Giulia blinked, visibly moved. "You must be one of those people."
Adrian cleared his throat.
"Ms. Valenti, I don't think it's safe for you to be alone right now. Do you have a friend or relative you can stay with?"
"No," she said, her voice breaking on the word. "No one."
Clara took her hand. "Then we'll stay with you for a while. Just to make sure everything's fine. Later we'll go back to the car and keep watch from there. You won't be alone, I promise."
Giulia stared at her, hope flickering faintly in her eyes.
"Would you really do that?"
"Of course," Clara said softly. "You deserve to feel safe."
Giulia nodded and sank into the couch, visibly calmer.
Clara sat beside her and took her hand again, a small, human gesture. But the moment their skin touched, something ignited inside Clara's mind. A high-pitched sound, metallic, cutting. The sharp scent of blood. A red light exploding behind her eyes.
She was no longer in the living room. She was somewhere else.
A dark basement, the air thick and damp.
Concrete walls streaked with oil and fingerprints. The smell of gasoline, rust, sweat.
A man stood hunched over a workbench.
She couldn't see his face, only his shoulders, his hands, the long knife that caught the light as he sharpened it slowly, rhythmically.
Each drag of the blade against the whetstone echoed through her skull: shh-shh-shh.
On the wall above him hung photographs of women, smiling, crying, some torn in half.
One had her eyes scratched out. Another, her name written in blood-red ink.
The man hummed under his breath. A lullaby. A child's song turned grotesque.
Clara wanted to scream but couldn't.
Her feet were glued to the floor. And then, for a heartbeat, the knife gleamed again, and in its reflection she saw a woman's face.
Her own. But her lips were sewn shut.
Clara's scream tore her back into reality.
"Clara!"
Adrian grabbed her shoulders.
"Look at me, what did you see?"
She stared at him, shaking, the color drained from her face. And as their eyes met, the image crossed from her mind into his.
He saw everything.
The basement. The blade. The whisper of the whetstone. The jar filled with hair.
Both froze, breathless. Then, in perfect unison, they whispered: "He's coming."
The words hung in the air, heavy as thunder.
Giulia pressed a trembling hand to her lips. "Who's… who's coming?"
Outside, thunder cracked across the sky.
The light flickered.
Adrian moved to the window, muscles tense.
"Turn off the lights," he said quietly.
Clara obeyed. The room fell into a tense half-darkness. Only the sound of breathing, three different rhythms, filled the silence.
Giulia's voice trembled. "I don't understand. What's happening?"
Clara knelt in front of her, eyes dark and steady.
"It means we're not alone. And if you want to live, don't make a sound."
The silence thickened, pulsed. Somewhere outside, a faint noise, footsteps. Then, a siren in the distance.
Adrian didn't move. He just whispered, "He's here."
Clara reached for his hand, and when their fingers touched, a surge of power rushed through her, bright, electric, alive.
It wasn't fear anymore. It was something else.
Their minds aligned perfectly for one impossible instant. And Clara finally understood. It wasn't the killer who was hunting them. It was the power itself and it had finally found them.