I curse and fumble with everything in my arms, dialing her back and getting her voice mail, again and again.

Only then do I hear the irregular footsteps over my nervous heartbeat, over that ominous buzzing that starts somewhere between my ears.

I sneak a look back at the main street. An unfamiliar man in jeans and a military jacket lopes toward me, his bearded face half-covered by a hat. Newspaper in hand.

It’s the man from before. Reading, on the bench outside Katox’s shop.

“We need to talk,” he calls down the alley. Something about his tone, his gait sends a prickling warning up my neck. There’s something wrong with him. He reminds me of the fans, of the obsessives who sometimes approached Mama, who sometimes find Tai, even me. The ones who reached for Mama’s hair, who got close enough to smell her because they felt entitled to it.

He saw me, before. He recognized me. I don’t answer, increasing my pace instead. We’re alone on the side street, and the road only becomes quieter from here. Emptier. His footsteps don’t quicken behind me, but I hear them, his shoe soles scraping against the sidewalk. The flower arrangement feels so heavy in my arms, and even though it’s wrapped at the base, I hear water sloshing inside.

“Did you hear me, Manon?” he says, the mockery in his voice not cold enough to conceal his hunger. “Stop.”

But when I hear my name, the buzzing overwhelms me, and I run, weighed down by the arrangement I cling to still. As I turn right on the next street, a Mercedes-Benz sedan emerges from a garage, engine purring like velvet, blocking me. I hurry toward its front windows, but the car roars away, its driver still faceless.

And I am alone once more, except for the crackling static in my head, except for the coppery tang of those fizzy pennies, except for—

I hear the man repeating my name, like it’s a warped nursery rhyme, like he needs me, gaining on me with each rasp of his feet.

I consider dropping the arrangement and bag of snacks and running. I consider turning and shouting, What do you want? Leave me alone. I consider surprising him and throwing the bundle at his face. How far would it go? It’s so heavy.

And I’m not so strong.

I look up at the cameras watching from every building facade. But what good would they do, those unfeeling sentinels? Always reporting, never acting.