The restaurant smelled like burnt garlic and cheap wine. Olivia tried not to wrinkle her nose as her date, a man named Daniel, swirled his merlot as if he knew what he was doing. He had been pleasant enough at first, polite, even charming. But something was off. His eyes never quite met hers. The way he held his fork—too tight, like he might snap it in half.

“I don’t think we have chemistry,” she finally said, pushing her half-eaten pasta aside. The words sat heavy between them.

Daniel smiled. “That’s disappointing.”

“Yeah.” She reached for her purse, suddenly anxious to leave. “I should—”

Pain. A sharp, deep intrusion beneath her ribs. Olivia gasped, confused at first, looking down to see the handle of a knife buried in her side.

Her mouth opened, but no words came. Heat spread through her abdomen. She reached for him, maybe to push him away, maybe to plead, but he caught her wrist and twisted it gently. “Shh,” he whispered, as if they were sharing a secret.

The restaurant blurred. The tacky red tablecloth. The candlelight. The way his face softened into something almost… nostalgic.

Olivia’s knees buckled. She slid to the floor, vision tunneling, her mind unraveling. And then, amid the agony, the memories began to surface.

Her childhood. Running barefoot through her grandmother’s garden, dirt between her toes. The scent of rain hitting hot pavement in the summer. Her mother brushing her hair at night, humming an old lullaby.

Her friends. Sleepovers filled with whispered secrets and pinky promises. Stolen sips of beer in the woods. The way they had drifted apart, one by one, as life carried them in different directions.

Her first love.

The memory came suddenly, like a knife to the gut.

His name had been Danny. A boy with dark eyes and a dimple that only showed when he smiled for real. He had kissed her behind the old library, hands trembling against her waist. She had loved him in the way only teenagers could—reckless, all-consuming, certain it would last forever.

Until he disappeared.

Until his family packed up and left without a word.

Her gaze lifted to the man kneeling over her.

The restaurant noise faded. The world shrank.

She saw him now, truly saw him. The curve of his lips. The shape of his jaw. The way his eyes, dark and endless, drank in her dying breaths.

“Olivia,” he murmured, almost tenderly.

Danny.

Her first love.

Her killer.

Her lips parted, but the words never came.

Then, the darkness took her.