The buzz of fluorescent lights scratched at Carmen Vale's nerves, a sound so thin and constant it felt like it lived in her skull. Cold air licked her face. The room reeked of bleach, but beneath it—always beneath it—was that copper stench. Blood.
She didn't flinch. Just tightened her grip on the scalpel.
Red coated her gloves, thick and drying in streaks. It clung to her like guilt. Or maybe absolution. Hard to tell these days. The man on the table wasn't moving. Couldn't. She'd made sure of that.
He'd been perfect on the outside—polished shoes, expensive teeth, that smug grin. Carmen had tracked him for sixteen days. Long enough to watch the cruelty seep out between handshakes and dinner dates. Long enough to name the broken girls he left in his wake.
Now he was quiet.
Still.
Like a body should be.
Another man lay beneath her. Opened up. Not just his chest—everything. His lies. His violence. His choices.
He was thirty-two. Worked in finance, or at least used that word like a shield. Carmen remembered his face. That kind of face that turned heads and made people stupid. Sharp jaw. Too-white teeth. But behind his eyes? Nothing. Just mirrors and rot.
She'd seen what he did to women. Watched it unfold like a sick pattern. Kindness at first, then silence, gaslight, bruises. The worst part wasn't the broken bones. It was how he made them apologize for hurting.
One of them had jumped.
Carmen still had her picture—creases worn into it from nights it sat beside her wine glass. Sometimes she'd talk to it. Apologize. Swear it wouldn't happen again. Swear someone would pay.
Now she was here. And he was there.
And it was quiet.
She worked slow. Careful. Almost gentle, like she was shaping penance out of meat and sinew. The body gave way without a fight. Ribs parted like the gates of something holy.
Then she saw it.
Deep inside—too deep—there was a vein. Thick. Wrong.
It moved.
Just once. A ripple. But enough.
Carmen's breath caught, sharp in her throat. The room went still, like it was holding its breath with her. The air shimmered. She blinked, and the edges of the world started to slip—like reality was fraying at the seams.
"What the hell…"
She reached out.
The tip of her finger grazed the pulsing vein.
The lights didn't flicker—they exploded. A white-hot flash ripped through the room. Sound disappeared. Or maybe it screamed so loud it broke into silence. Carmen's body twisted, lifted, slammed through something that wasn't air.
Then nothing.
No pain. No time.
Just a hollow absence that pressed against her ribs like grief.
When the sensation returned, it was wrong.
Soft.
The sheets tangled around her like vines. Heavy. Smelling of lavender and dust and something else—old money. Her hands twitched, instinctively searching for gloves that weren't there. Skin. Bare. The corset crushed her breath. Lace clawed at her collarbone.
She sat up fast.
The room spun. Red velvet above. Flickering fire. Shadows dancing like ghosts.
No steel. No blood. No man on a table.
She staggered to the window.
Outside—horses. Carriages. Fog thick enough to swallow a city block. Men in top hats. Chimneys spitting smoke like dying gods.
London.
But not her London.
Not 2025.
Carmen dry-heaved into a porcelain basin. Her body shook. Not from the time slip—not entirely. From something worse.
She could already feel it.
This world was going to treat her like she was made of sugar.
Delicate.
Breakable.
She wasn't.
She was bone and knives and old, righteous fury.
Three days passed.
She watched. Listened. Learned.
They thought she was ill. "Hysterical." A condition, apparently, of being female and too smart to stay quiet. Some idiot doctor suggested leeches. Carmen smiled. Took notes on how to slit his throat in three clean cuts.
By day five, she'd stolen a scalpel and mapped the streets. And found something that made her stomach twist.
The murders had already started.
Five women. Brutal. Organs missing. The press blamed immigrants, witches, demons.
But Carmen knew.
The last body wore her mark.
A spiral inside a flame. Etched into skin like a promise.
Her symbol.
Julian Cross was here.
She'd watched him die. Held him as he choked on his own blood. She'd ripped out his heart, stared into his eyes when the light faded.
He was her lover. Her enemy. The man who made killing feel like a love language.
So how the hell was he alive?
How the hell was he here?
Carmen didn't know. Not yet.
But she'd find out.
And if she had to kill him again—
she'd make damn sure this time…
He stayed dead.