Three years later

The orchid was waiting when she got home.

Aria stood outside her apartment door, keys still in one hand, her other reaching toward the delicate bloom. Its petals shimmered under the dim hallway light, white with veins of deep violet, like bruises under porcelain skin. The plant sat alone in a minimalist ceramic pot, perched dead-center on the worn welcome mat outside unit 3C.

No card. No receipt. No delivery slip. Just the flower.

She blinked, still in the fog of her fourteen-hour shift. Her scrubs were damp with sweat and the scent of antiseptic, her shoes sticky with things she didn’t want to think about. Her fingers ached from stitching a man's liver back together two hours ago. And now… this?

Her brain fumbled for logic. A neighbor? A hospital volunteer with the wrong door? A mistake?

She bent down and touched the pot. Smooth, cool ceramic. The orchid wasn’t wilting, either freshly watered. The timing was exact. Whoever left it knew she’d be home now.

“Weird,” she muttered to herself.

She lifted the pot, holding it closer. The scent was faint but unmistakable clean, floral, a little wild. Orchids had been her favorite since she was a kid. Her mother used to bring them home from the hospital nursery where she worked back when her mother still smiled.

But Aria hadn’t told anyone that. Not at work. Not to friends. It was one of those things she kept locked up too personal to be casual, too small to be significant. So how did anyone know?

Still… she didn’t throw it away.

Inside her studio apartment, she kicked off her shoes, dropped her bag, and placed the orchid on the kitchen counter. It looked out of place among the clutter of med textbooks and the untouched dishes in her sink. A bit of beauty in a life that didn’t leave much room for it.

She poured herself a glass of wine, cheap, red, and two days open—but it did the job. Her limbs were heavy. Her brain felt like cotton soaked in adrenaline and exhaustion. She’d handled two car accidents today, a stabbing, and a last-minute emergency thoracotomy that pushed her shift into overtime. Her shoulders screamed with tension. Her lower back ached. Her mind refused to slow down.

She stared at the orchid while she sipped, half-wondering if she was too tired to be creeped out.

Probably from a patient’s family, she reasoned. That made sense. Families sometimes sent flowers. Though they usually sent them to the hospital not her doorstep. Not anonymously.

Still.

She reached out, gently touching a petal. It was soft as silk.

Then it hit her again. That feeling.

She froze.

The prickle at the back of her neck. The electric buzz along her skin. Like being watched from across a room except the room was the whole damn city, and the watcher was nowhere she could see.

Aria turned slowly, scanning the apartment. Nothing out of place. No shadows in the corners. No open windows. But the feeling stayed.

She crossed to the window, wine glass in hand, and peered out. Third floor. A narrow street below. Rows of parked cars. Streetlights pooling orange halos across the pavement.

A couple walked a golden retriever across the crosswalk, laughing softly. Somewhere down the block, a muffled bassline thumped from a car stereo. The world looked normal.

So why do I feel like I’m not alone?

She pulled the blinds shut. Locked the window. Drained the rest of her wine in two long gulps and headed for the bathroom.

The shower was the only sanctuary she had left. Hot water pounded against her skin, washing away the hospital blood, sweat, latex, the scent of fear clinging to her like static. She braced her hands against the tile and let the water beat between her shoulder blades, trying to will the day away.

You’re being paranoid, she told herself. Just stress. You’ve barely slept all week. You’re spiraling over a flower.

But the tightness in her chest wouldn’t leave.

After twenty minutes, she stepped out, towel-wrapped and half-dazed. Steam curled through the apartment as she padded barefoot to the nightstand where her phone vibrated.

Unknown number.

She answered instinctively. “Dr. Blackwood.”

Silence.

She frowned. “Hello?”

On the other end—breathing. Not panicked. Not shallow. Just… there. Steady. Male.

“Hello?” she said again, louder this time.

Then a voice. Low. Rough, like gravel rubbed against velvet.

“Beautiful.”

Click.

The line went dead.

Aria stood frozen, the phone still pressed to her ear, her towel clutched against her chest.

Wrong number, she thought. Has to be. Some creep messing around.

But her pulse had already kicked into high gear. Her mind moved fast, too fast, racing through every possibility—stalker, prank, wrong number, actual threat.

Then her phone buzzed again.

A text. No name. Just a message:

The orchid suits you.

The wine turned sour in her stomach.

She crossed to the window in three strides and yanked the blinds open. Her eyes swept the street, this time with purpose. The dog-walking couple was gone. No movement. No headlights. But...

There.

A figure stood halfway down the block, just outside the pool of a streetlight. Not moving. Not hiding. Just… watching.

Too far to see the face. No obvious threat. But presence alone was enough.

Aria’s breath caught. Her fingers hovered over her phone. Call the police, her instincts screamed. But what would she say?

A flower. A phone call. A figure in the dark. That wasn’t a crime. That was New York.

She looked back down. The figure was gone.

The space where it stood was empty, like it had never been there.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she backed away from the window. She checked the lock on the door. Then again. Then the chain. Then the sliding bolt. She closed every blind, shut every curtain, flicked every switch that brought more light into the space.

The orchid sat quietly on her kitchen counter. Innocent. Beautiful. Menacing.

She stared at it like it might move.

It didn’t.

But her body stayed tense for hours. She didn’t turn on the TV. She didn’t answer the phone again. She just sat on the edge of her bed, towel long dried, hair still damp, wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt that said Scrub Life across the chest.

She kept telling herself she was overreacting.

She kept not believing it.

That night, she fell asleep with the lamp still on and a kitchen knife tucked under the edge of her pillow.

She slept for four hours.

And dreamed of dark eyes.