Chapter 1
The morning streets were in absolute chaos.
A car came hurtling forward at dangerous speed — the driver’s face twisted with panic, shouting something inside the sealed cabin, his eyes darting between the road ahead and somewhere below the dashboard, as though something had gone terribly wrong with the car itself. Nearby, a group of children in school uniforms laughed and chattered, their mothers gathered in clusters along the sidewalk, deep in conversation, all of them waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green. From the opposite lane, a massive truck barreled forward under a heavy load. And from the cross streets, rows of cars and motorcycles sat still, waiting for red to become green.
The speeding car was nearly at the intersection now. The driver watched in horror as the traffic light slid from green to yellow — and in seconds, it would turn red. The car showed no sign of slowing. He slammed the horn. Nothing. It didn’t work.
The pedestrian light flashed green.
The schoolchildren squealed with delight and stepped off the curb.
One second more, and everything — the children, the adults, the oncoming traffic — would be swallowed by the impact.
Then she appeared.
No one could say where she had come from.
A young woman. Breathtakingly beautiful — nearly six feet tall, with long legs and a slender frame. Her face was a striking blend of Asian and Eastern European features, oval and sharp at once. Thick hair fell to her waist, pulled back in a single braid. She was dressed entirely in black: gym wear, leather jacket, cap, sunglasses, oversized bag, headset, watch — every piece of her, black.
She walked upright. Graceful. Her bag hung from her left shoulder, her left hand pressed flat against her abdomen, curled toward her right hip. She moved quickly, but nothing about her seemed rushed — gliding through the pedestrian crossing as though the chaos around her was simply weather.
Her gaze stayed straight ahead.
No one saw her left hand move.
Three quiet snaps — index finger against thumb.
The car was already beside her. One centimeter away.
And then it stopped.
The entire intersection went silent for a breath. Heads turned. People stared — at the car, at the light still green for pedestrians, at the woman already walking past as though nothing had happened at all.
The driver stumbled out of the car. He dropped to his knees on the asphalt, shaking violently, bowing again and again, his face turned upward toward the sky, tears streaming freely. He couldn’t bring himself to imagine what might have been.
The woman turned. She walked toward him, bent slightly at the waist, and spoke close to his ear — her voice barely above a whisper.
“Get back in your car. Now.”
He looked up at her, shaking his head with desperate force.
“No — no, the car is broken! The brakes, everything — nothing worked! Nothing—!”
He tried to stand, tried to run. But his legs wouldn’t move. No one noticed the woman’s fingers shift — one quiet snap, index against thumb — or the way her eyes fixed on him, sharp and unreadable. He flinched under her gaze, then looked down.
Behind him, the light had already changed to green. A chorus of impatient horns erupted from the waiting lane.
He had no choice. He climbed back into the car. Hands trembling, he turned the ignition. Pressed the brake. Touched the horn.
Everything worked perfectly.
He sat there, stunned — then, because the cars behind him left no room for stillness, he drove. His eyes searched the sidewalk for the woman.
She was gone.
No one noticed any of this — except for one pair of eyes, watching in silence from a café at the corner of the intersection.
A delicate hand, nails painted deep red, turned a teacup slowly in its saucer. Its owner smiled — not warmly. From a small red bag in her lap, she retrieved something and lowered it into the still-hot tea.
A red scorpion.
It writhed the moment it hit the liquid, its body convulsing against the heat as though it were being burned alive. She stirred the cup once, slowly. The scorpion dissolved.
She lifted the cup. Inhaled the steam.
Then she drank — slowly, deliberately — her eyes distant, her thoughts already somewhere else.
Somewhere with that woman.
