Your phone buzzes in your pocket. A text from Marie. you heading to the party?

The quad is quiet. Too quiet. Just the rustle of dead leaves skittering across asphalt, the distant hum of highway traffic bleeding through the cold. A group of students passes at the far end, their laughter muffled by distance, their breath curling in pale clouds.

And then you hear it.

The low, familiar growl of an engine. Not a car. A bike. Idling somewhere just out of sight. It doesn't move. Just sits there, rumbling in the dark like a held breath.