Release Date: TBD

Title TBD

​Prologue

The rain came down in sheets, blurring the park into nothing. Joshua Mavin ran anyway, sneakers slapping wet pavement, lungs burning. His chest heaved; every breath was a jagged thing in his throat.
“He found me!” The words ripped out of him, louder than he meant, desperate for anyone, someone to hear.
He cut across the empty basketball court beneath a single flickering streetlight. Boots splashed behind him, steady and patient.
“Jonathan!” the voice called. The name landed like a stone. “Wear a new face. Hide if you can. Run until your legs give out. None of it will stop what comes for you tonight.”
Joshua stopped. His real name hit him like a fist.
A man emerged from the trees: dark coat, cold eyes, a faint smile like a promise of violence. It was him, the face from the theater that had filled the news.
“You thought you could hide from me?” the man said, tilting his head, amusement thin. “I remember faces. You told the cops about me.”
Joshua’s mouth went dry. He had nothing: no plan, no weapon, only panic. The man closed the distance in three slow steps. One hand slipped into his coat. Metal flashed.
Joshua stumbled back, tripped on the court’s edge, and fell into the mud. The man loomed over him, the knife rising.
“No more running, no more hiding. Tonight, you die!” he said.
Lightning cracked. For a heartbeat everything stopped: the rain like glass, the man’s shadow, Joshua’s heart a drum in his ears.
His fingers closed on something cold in the mud. Rough and slick. A rock. Heavy enough to hurt, maybe heavy enough to save him…