Chapter 1
On the third day of the new semester at Abyssal Metropolitan University, I walked into the classroom hugging my textbooks.
Everyone assumed I was just another transfer student.
I chose a seat in the back row by the window, set my backpack down, and gave an innocent smile.
The girl in the front row glanced back at me and whispered to her seatmate, "The new girl seems really innocent."
I lowered my head, letting my long hair fall over half my face.
Me? Innocent?
If they knew who I really was, they'd probably be so freaked out they'd call the cops on the spot.
My name is Nyx Anderson.
The director at the orphanage named me Nyx because I was abandoned at their doorstep on a night so dark, not even the moon showed up.
I was twenty-two, a criminal profiler, and my code name was Night.
In law enforcement circles, that code name was way more notorious than my real one.
In the past three years, I'd helped solve seventeen major cases, six of them were serial murders.
No one's ever seen my face.
Every cop I've worked with just assumed my codename Night belonged to some middle-aged guy in his forties.
After all, who would ever believe a twenty-two-year-old girl could get inside a serial killer's head?
The professor was calling the roll, and when he got to my name, he paused for a second.
"Nyx Anderson? Transferred from Capital University?" he asked.
I stood up, my voice barely above a whisper. "Yes."
Every pair of eyes in the classroom turned to me.
I was dressed in a plain white shirt, jeans, and sneakers, with my hair pulled back in a low ponytail.
I looked just like that ordinary girl from the next class who always sits in the corner.
The professor nodded and didn't ask any more questions.
He didn't know, and he wasn't supposed to.
I had only one reason for coming to Abyssal Metropolitan University.
Three months ago, Abyssal City saw four female college students vanish one after another.
After the police got involved, they discovered two bodies.
Both victims had the same fate: ligature marks around their necks, bindings on their wrists, and both were killed exactly seven days after they went missing.
Nobody knew what the killer did between day four and day seven.
By the time the bodies turned up, they'd been so brutally mutilated that even the best investigators were left with nothing but questions.
The task force had been at it for two months, and they were getting nowhere.
Three days ago, an old leader from the provincial bureau tracked me down.
"Nyx, this case needs you," he said.
As he spoke, I caught that familiar weariness in his gaze.
It was the kind of helplessness facing a criminal whose intelligence makes standard investigative methods useless.
I agreed.
On one condition: I'd go undercover as a transfer student at Abyssal Metropolitan University and investigate from the inside.
Because all the missing girls had one thing in common.
They all lived in that old dorm building in the East part of campus.
And right now, I was sitting in Room 306 of that very building.
*****
When the bell rang, I hugged my textbooks and made my way back to the dorm.
The dorm building in the East part of Abyssal Metropolitan University was built in the eighties, its pale gray walls nearly swallowed up by creeping vines.
The hallway lights flickered, and the air was thick with a damp, musty smell.
Room 306 was meant for four people, but there were only three of us.
My roommates were Zara Baker, a local girl with a sunny personality; Sorcha Smith, an art major who barely spoke; and one empty bed, rumor had it the girl who used to sleep there took a break from school last semester.
No one ever told me why she took a break from school.
I didn't ask.
Asking too many questions would only make people suspicious.
At eleven o'clock, the dorm lights went out.
Zara slipped on her headphones and started watching her show, while Sorcha drew her bed curtain shut.
I lay in bed with my eyes closed, but I listened for every sound in the room.
Footsteps echoed from the end of the hallway.
The faucet kept dripping.
A cat meowed somewhere in the distance.
And also...
Someone was softly humming in the hallway.
It was a woman's voice, soft and even, like some ancient lullaby.
The humming drifted closer, passed right by the door of Room 306, and then slowly faded away.
I opened my eyes and checked my phone.
It was 1:23 AM.
The next morning, I ran into Zara in the cafeteria.
She sat down across from me with her milk, leaned in, and whispered, "Nyx, did you hear anything last night?"
"What?" I asked.
"That singing," Zara said, her face looking uneasy. "Everyone in this building knows it's not sung by a person."
I took a bite of my sandwich and kept quiet.
"The girl who went missing last year lived right next door," Zara whispered, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Every night for a week before she disappeared, she kept saying she heard a woman singing in the hallway."
"What happened after that?" I asked.
"Then she just disappeared," Zara said, finishing her soy milk. "The police came by several times, but couldn't find a thing."
I fixed my gaze on her.
"Can you hum that song for me?" Nyx asked.
Zara hesitated, then let out a few tentative notes.
I put down my sandwich, a conclusion already forming in my mind.
That was no lullaby, but a love song, played in reverse.