In the kitchen, her cat, Sultan, meowed for his dinner. She poured kibble into his bowl with steady hands, then sat on the floor beside him, her back against the refrigerator.
The classic key. A question to stop her. To make her look up, lower her guard. She had read somewhere that most attacks begin with a question. She stopped walking. He stopped too, two meters away, his hands buried in his jacket pockets.
He began to walk parallel to her, on the opposite side of the street.
Leila stepped forward, closing the distance to one meter. His eyes widened. Predators don’t expect prey to move toward them.
She walked the remaining four blocks at the same steady pace. She climbed the three flights of stairs. She unlocked her door, stepped inside, and slid the deadbolt home. Only then did she lean her forehead against the cool wood and exhale—a long, shuddering breath that tasted like relief and rage and the faint ghost of jasmine.
His jaw tightened. For a second, his hand twitched inside the pocket. Leila’s thumb pressed the button on her keychain alarm—the one that emitted a shriek at 130 decibels. She hadn’t used it in two years. Her thumb hovered.
Leila did not run. Running was surrender.
Tonight, the air smelled of wet sand and jasmine, a deceptive sweetness that clung to the back of her throat. She clutched her worn leather satchel, the strap digging into her shoulder, and walked with the practiced rhythm of someone who had learned to listen. Her ears were her greatest weapon.