There was no safe place, no haven where she could hide. Even knowing that, admitting it, she couldn’t just stand there; with nowhere else to go, no way to stop him, she ran out onto the balcony, high over the city. She reached the wall and could go no farther, unless she tried to fly, and her sense of self-preservation was too strong to allow that. As long as she was alive, she would try to remain that way.

Blindly she reached out and gripped the iron rail set atop the wall, her fingers locking around the metal as she stared at nothing. Central Park spread out beneath her, a cool green oasis in the middle of the vast thicket of steel and concrete that was Manhattan. Birds soared below, and overhead fat white clouds drifted lazily across the pure blue of the sky. The hot sunlight touched her face, her bare arms and shoulders, while a breeze flirted with her curls. She felt disconnected from all of that, as if none of it was real, not even the heat of the sun on her cheeks.

She felt him approach, felt him halt when he was close behind her. She hadn’t heard him, wasn’t aware of a single sound other than the rustle of the breeze and the faint noise of the city far below; nevertheless she knew he was there. Every nerve in her skin was shrieking an alarm, telling her that Death was about to reach out and touch her.

His hand settled on the bare curve of her shoulder.

Panic exploded in her skull, mental fireworks that obliterated both thought and action. She didn’t react; she couldn’t. She stood there, violently trembling, because she was incapable of doing more, or even less.

Slowly, as if he savored the texture of her skin, he stroked down the length of her arm. His hand was hard and warm, his fingertips and palm rough with callus, but his touch was controlled, even…gentle? She had expected brutality, been prepared for it, had so focused on simply surviving that she couldn’t process the reality of the caress. Her senses reeled just as if he’d punched her.