I turn on Twelfth. It’s darker there, less traffic. A few people are talking out on their stoop. A young couple making out in the shadows. The guy’s still on me. I still hear his footsteps close behind.

Pick up your pace, I tell myself. You live only a few blocks away.

I tell myself that this can’t be happening. If you’re going to wake up, Kate, now’s the time! But I don’t wake up. This time it’s real. This time I’m holding a secret important enough to get myself killed.

I cross the street, quickening my pace. My heart’s starting to race. His footsteps are knifing through me now. I catch a glimpse of him in the reflection of a store window. The dark mustache and short, wiry hair.

My heart’s slamming back and forth off my ribs now.

There’s a market where I sometimes buy groceries. I run in. There are people there. For a second I feel safe. I take a basket, hide between the aisles, throw in things I pretend I need. But all the while I’m just waiting. Praying he’s passing by.

I pay. I smile a little nervously at Ingrid, the checkout girl, who knows me. I have this eerie premonition. What if she’s the last person to see me alive?

Back outside, I feel relief for a second. The guy must be gone. No sign. But then I freeze. He’s still there. Leaning aimlessly against a parked car on the other side of the street, talking into a phone. His eyes slowly drift to mine…

Shit, Kate, what the hell do you do now?

Now I run. An indistinguishable pace at first, then faster. I hear the frantic rhythm of quickening footsteps on the pavement-but this time they’re mine.

I grope in my bag for my phone. Maybe I should call Greg. I want to tell him I love him. But I know the time-it’s the middle of his shift. All I’d get is his voice mail. He’s on rounds.