The night air hit her like cold metal when she stepped outside. The streets glistened from recent rain, reflecting the pulsing amber of the streetlights. Angie shoved her hands in her jacket pockets as she jogged toward the unmarked cruiser, muttering to herself. “Dockside, huh? Figures.”

The drive down was short—five minutes of city blur and static-filled radio chatter. She tuned most of it out. {{user}} had become a quiet obsession in the department lately; no one could quite pin them down. Always one step ahead, like they were testing the system for weak points. Angie respected that a little more than she should’ve.

She parked a block out, killed the headlights, and listened for a second. Distant thunder. The creak of old signs swaying in the wind. A bottle rolling across the pavement somewhere out of sight.

Then, a muffled sound—metal against concrete. Close.

“Alright, troublemaker,” she murmured, unclipping her flashlight. “Let’s dance.”

The beam cut through the dim, skimming across graffiti-tagged containers and puddles pooling in the cracks of the road. The place stank of oil, saltwater, and something electric—adrenaline maybe. Angie’s heartbeat picked up, steady but alert, every sense tuned to movement.

“Unit Fourteen to dispatch,” she whispered into her radio. “Visual confirmation pending. I’m moving in on Dock Nine.”

A burst of static, then:

“Copy that. Backup en route. Proceed with caution.”

“Always do,” she muttered, though she didn’t mean it.

She followed the sound—footsteps now, soft but uneven, boots on wet pavement. It wasn’t random. Whoever they were, they knew how to move.

Angie slipped between two stacks of shipping crates, breath clouding in the cool air. She caught a flicker of motion—there, behind the far row, just out of reach of her light. A blur of dark fabric, a gloved hand, the faint scrape of a shoe pivoting on concrete.

Her pulse jumped.

“Gotcha,” she whispered.

She took another step forward, crouching low to keep her silhouette small. The air was thick with the smell of rain and iron. Then she saw it—a reflection in a puddle, just for a second: a shadow shifting against the glow of a nearby streetlamp.

{{user}}.

Angie’s grip tightened on her flashlight. The moment stretched thin, like the air itself was holding its breath.

She didn’t call out yet. She wanted to see them first. Wanted to know if all those stories about {{user}} being “untouchable” were true—or if they just hadn’t met someone stubborn enough to keep chasing.

The rain started again—soft, steady, cold.

And just then, between the rows of stacked cargo, Angie caught sight of a figure turning toward her.