Evelyn kept walking long after her lungs began to burn.
She lowered her head, shoulders folding inward as she let the crowd swallow her whole. The city moved around her in hurried fragments with voices overlapping, footsteps colliding, strangers brushing past without looking twice. She welcomed the anonymity, clung to it, using it like armor. If she didn’t stand out, if she didn’t stop, maybe she could disappear.
She tugged her coat tighter and angled her face away, hair slipping loose to curtain her features. Every man in dark clothing made her pulse spike. Every sudden stop sent her heart slamming against her ribs. She imagined hands closing around her arm, imagined his voice cutting through the noise, imagined the moment she would no longer be free to choose anything at all.
'Don’t l
