Chapter 3: The Rearview Mirror
746 Words
The woods didn't offer sanctuary they rather offered shadows. Maya ran until her lungs burned like she was back in the hallway of her burning apartment, the heat licking at her heels. She didn’t stop until the sound of the shovel hitting dirt was replaced by the distant, rhythmic hum of the highway.
She reached to her car, a beat-up 2014 sedan parked a half-mile away in a grocery store lot. It was silver, and currently her only home. Maya scrambled inside, locking the doors. She slumped against the headrest, her breath fogging the windshield in thick clouds. Her hands were caked in grave dirt. It was under her fingernails, black and damp, a physical reminder that the world thought she was six feet under.
She pulled the velvet box from her pocket.
The severed finger sat there, pale and mocking. She forced herself to look closer. The skin was waxy, preserved with something that smelled of chemicals and clinical hallways. But it was the ring, it's the small and braided gold band that made her vision blur.
She had been wearing that ring the night of the fire. She remembered the heat of the metal against her skin as she scrambled through the basement window. She must have dropped it. Or... it had been taken from her while she lay unconscious on the wet grass.
Who are you? she whispered to the empty car.
A sudden flash of light cut through the gloom. Maya flinched, ducking below the dashboard. Her heart hammered against the steering wheel. Through the gap in the window, she watched a black SUV crawl slowly through the parking lot. It wasn't the car that had taken her mother away, but it was moving with the same predatory patience. It slowed down as it passed her row, the headlights sweeping over her trunk like a searchlight.
She held her breath until her chest ached. The SUV didn’t stop. It turned toward the exit, its red taillights winking out like dying coals. Maya sat up, her skin prickling. She couldn't go to her mother's house. She couldn't go to the police not with that severed of a finger in her pocket and a death certificate with her name on it. In the eyes of the law, Maya Reed didn't exist, and the woman who did exist was currently eating dinner with her family. She reached for her burner phone, her fingers hovering over the keypad. She needed a lead. She needed to know who had handled the "death" paperwork.
She typed in a name she hadn't spoken in years; Julian.
Julian was a "cleaner" for digital messes. A guy she’d met during her brief stint clerking for a high-end law firm. He knew how to find the cracks in a system.
The phone rang three times before a weary, gravelly voice answered. "Yeah?"
"It’s Maya," she said, her voice cracking.
There was a long, heavy silence. Maya could hear the sound of a television in the background probably a news report, low and indistinct.
"Maya's dead, kid," Julian said, his tone flat. "I saw the obituary. Don't play games."
"I'm looking at my own grave, Julian. Someone is in my house. Someone is wearing my face."
"Listen to me carefully," Julian’s voice dropped to a whisper. "If you're really her... stay away from the hospitals. Stay away from anyone you trust. I just looked at the police report for the Reed fire. They didn't just find a body, Maya. They found dental records too. Your dental records at that sort." Maya stared at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her teeth felt like foreign objects in her mouth. "How?" she choked out.
"That’s the thing," Julian said. "The records were uploaded to the state database two hours after the fire started. Someone didn't just steal your life, Maya. They’ve been building a cage for you for a long time."
A loud crack echoed through the parking lot.
Maya’s head snapped toward the passenger window. A man was standing there, his face pressed against the glass. It was the groundskeeper from the cemetery. But he wasn't holding a shovel anymore. He was holding a heavy, rusted crowbar. And he wasn't just looking at Maya with milky, blind eyes. They were sharp, clear, and fixed on the velvet box in her lap. He raised the iron bar.
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