Mirrors & Shadows

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝐗𝐕

The windshield of a small car rolled down. An angry man's face appeared.
"Espèce d'enculé, va!" He shouted to the car in front with his raspy French accent. "Il y a priorité à droite!"
So much for the perfect kiss... she thought to herself. She glanced at the couple that had meanwhile drifted apart from each other while watching the incident. Between them, she spotted the man from the bar a few paces behind them. The man smiled at her and her own sarcastic smile disappeared as she discovered she was being watched. She turned away. It was getting late now and her feet were blistered. She knew a metro station not far where she wouldn't have to change lines to go home.

In the metro station, she heard her train before she saw it. She rushed down the metro stairs and once the doors clamped shut behind her, she gripped the bar and watched the empty station disappear leaving in its place the darkness of the metro tunnel.

Against the metro window, she glimpsed her own ghostly reflection staring back at her. However, behind her, the small man with cunning eyes and a shaved head smiled at her. She didn't dare turn around. Though she glanced at his hand on the bar below hers. His skin was papery brown. Each long spindly finger bore at least two heavy rings. He was definitely the same guy from the bar. This guy was obviously not trying to hide the fact he was stalking her. That could only mean he thought there was nothing she could do against him. She remembered what Edmond had told her. The police might be infiltrated.

At the next stop she decided to get off the train. Indeed, he followed her. She mingled with the thin crowd of people toward the exit and tried to calm herself down. If she was too nervous, the accelerated rhythm of her heart and the odor of sweat and adrenaline might excite her predator. Outside the crowd dispersed, she stuck to what seemed to be a group of friends joking among themselves. She followed them. And he followed her. They passed a grocery store and she entered. The store had cameras. He wouldn't dare harm her there would he? In front of cameras and clients?

Luna picked a cart, not to look suspicious patrolling a grocery store without one. And began filling it, barely even registering what products she chose. It didn't seem like he had followed her inside the store. Was he waiting outside?

An old lady was frowning at Luna's cart behind a pair of thick spectacles and Luna realized she was holding a bottle of shaving cream. Five more identical bottles occupied her cart. Other contents of her cart included beer, baby diapers and Honey O's. Indeed, the scene must have looked awfully weird. A girl that you'd wager no older than seventeen—people always thought she was way younger than she actually was— casually stocking up on shaving cream, beer and baby diapers like if it were part of her ordinary weekly shopping list. She swapped her cart with the one in the next isle that contained more regular stuff.

Her hands were shaking by now as she weighed her solutions. Her, a young woman living alone with no friends, no family to seek protection against an immortal being who probably had centuries of experience behind him. She didn't stand a chance. She couldn't hide out in the grocery store forever.

But she wasn't completely alone. She rummaged in her pocket and held the piece of paper with Edmond's phone number. She dialed the number.
Her lips were trembling. What would she say?
"Allô?" Edmond's voice answered, making her heart jolt in her chest.
"It's Luna Enwright. Is this a wrong time?"
She didn't know what she would do if he said yes. She couldn't just hang up.
"No. Are you alright?" He asked clearly picking up that something was wrong.
She took a deep breath, not wanting her voice to betray her panic.
"I think you might've been right about the overdose being an attempt on my life. I don't know... maybe this is just me being paranoid but there's this man that keeps following me. I'm afraid of going home." If it turned out in the end that she had gotten overly distressed about a random guy that smiled at her in the metro, that would be so embarrassing.
"Where are you?" His voice was tense. He didn't think she was crazy.
"In some grocery store, near Arts et Métiers."
"Are there other people there?"
She glanced around at the befuddled man wondering how his toilet paper, coffee and canned beans had been replaced with beer, Honey'Os, shaving cream and diapers. And the old lady who had become more interested in cat food than in Luna.
"Yes." She confirmed.
"Good. Stay within crowds. Don't walk on any street that is empty. Now, listen closely. You can take the line 11 to Châtelet. Etc." He gave her precise instructions on the streets that led to his place, all the while urging her to take a longer route if the metro station or the street was empty.