The Hollisters: Chapter One

Chris clocked out, leaving behind another day of cold calls and dial tones. The early October air was sixty-five degrees but felt like the forties, the wind cutting through his thin jacket as he walked to the public parking garage.

He got in his Ford Taurus. As he fumbled for his keys, movement caught his eye in the side mirror. A woman stood beside a black Mercedes three spaces back, her silhouette perfectly still in the dim concrete light. Professional clothes, hands folded, waiting.

Chris slid into the driver’s seat. He reached for the ignition, but his elbow caught the steering wheel. The horn gave a sharp bleat.

The woman didn’t flinch. She just turned toward him.

Chris offered a weak wave in the rearview—an apology to a stranger. He started the engine and reversed, trying not to look back. But as he reached the garage exit, headlights washed over his interior. The Mercedes was keeping pace.

It stayed two cars back as Chris merged into evening traffic. At the first red light, he glanced in the mirror. Now the Mercedes was directly behind him, and the woman behind the wheel was looking right at his reflection.

His phone rang. Unknown number. Local area code.

He looked in the mirror. The woman was holding her phone to her ear, her eyes locked on his. It felt inevitable. He answered.

“Hello, Chris.” The voice was warm, professional. Like a therapist.

“Who is this?”

“Someone who’s been watching you. You look tired tonight.”

Chris’s grip tightened on the wheel. “How did you get my number? What do you want?” He signaled right, taking the wrong exit on purpose. No way was he leading her home.

“Don’t be alarmed. I have an opportunity for you. You’re stuck, aren’t you? Same job, same apartment, same frozen dinners four nights a week. When’s the last time you did something that mattered?”

“How do you know about my dinners?”

Chris pressed the gas. The Mercedes followed.

“Pull over at the next corner. The coffee shop.”

“I’m not—”

“Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

Chris felt like a mark in a con game, the guy who gets lured into an alley so he can be stripped of his wallet and dignity. Yet, he found himself signaling right. He pulled into the lot of a twenty-four-hour diner, the neon sign buzzing overhead. His hands shook as he cut the engine.

He knew he should drive away. He should lock his doors, call the cops, go home to his safe, quiet apartment. Instead, he watched the Mercedes park beside him.

The woman who stepped out looked to be in her thirties. She had olive skin and dark hair pulled back in a severe, simple style. Her clothes were expensive but understated—the kind of elegance that suggested old money, not the flashy desperation of a grifter.

She tapped on his passenger window.

Chris hesitated. This was how people disappeared. This was how you ended up as a statistic on the evening news.

He looked at the lock. Driving away meant going home to the silence of his apartment, to the cold calls waiting for him tomorrow. Unlocking the door meant… something else.

He pressed the button.

She slid into the seat beside him, bringing with her a scent of ozone and expensive perfume. Chris glanced in the back window, half-expecting men in masks to rush the car.

“Thank you,” she said, settling back against the headrest. “I know this is unusual.”

“Unusual?” Chris stared at her. “Lady, this is insane. Who are you?”

“My name is Alexia.” She turned to face him. Her eyes were dark, intelligent, and seemed far older than her face. “I work for an organization that specializes in… transitional moments.”

“What kind of organization?”

“The kind that helps people who are stuck. People who have stopped living and started waiting.” Her voice was gentle, but there was an edge underneath it that made the hair on his arms stand up. “Tell me about Sarah.”

Chris felt the air leave the car. “How do you—”

“December thirteenth. Ten years ago. Highway Ninety-Five. She was going to her sister’s birthday dinner. You were supposed to be driving.”

Chris’s mouth went dry. “I had to work.”

“You chose to work. There’s a difference.”

The words hung between them, heavy and absolute. Chris stared through the windshield at the diner’s sign, the red letters bleeding color into the damp asphalt.

“What do you want from me?” he whispered.

“Nothing you don’t want to give.” Alexia reached into her purse. She pulled out a business card—plain white, no company name, just a phone number in elegant script. “I help people who are ready to change the narrative.”

“And what’s the catch?”

She offered a faint, knowing smile. “There’s always a catch. But sometimes the catch is smaller than the cage you’re already in.”

Chris took the card. His fingers brushed hers, and for a moment, he felt a jolt—a warmth that had nothing to do with temperature, like touching a live wire wrapped in velvet.

“I should go,” he said, but he didn’t move.

“You work sixty hours a week at a job you loathe,” she said, her voice calm, reciting facts. “Your supervisor, Derek, makes twice what you do for half the effort. Your rent went up again last month, and you haven’t applied for a new job in eight months.”

Chris flinched.

“You eat the same frozen dinner four nights a week because cooking for one feels like an admission of defeat. You haven’t called your brother back because you’re afraid he’ll ask how you’re doing, and you’ve run out of lies.”

Each sentence was a scalpel, peeling back a layer of skin he’d spent a decade thickening. He felt exposed, flayed open in the front seat of his own car.

“Stop,” he said.

“When did you realize your life wasn’t what you’d planned?” Her voice dropped, softer now. “When did you stop dreaming and start just… enduring?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me what you want. Not what you think you deserve. Not what’s realistic. What do you actually want?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.”

“It’s the only thing that matters.”

They sat in silence, the diner’s neon casting shifting shadows across their faces. Finally, Chris looked at her.

“Why me? If you help people, why not someone who asked for it?”

“Because the people who don’t ask are usually the ones who need it most.” Alexia reached for the door handle. “Keep the card. When you’re ready to stop punishing yourself for being human, call me.”

She opened the door. The cold wind rushed in.

“What if I’m not ready?” he asked. “What if I never am?”

She paused, one foot on the pavement. “Then you’ll keep living the same day over and over until it kills you. And Sarah’s death will have been for nothing—not because you failed to save her, but because you failed to save yourself.”

The door closed with a soft click.

Chris watched her walk back to the Mercedes. She didn’t look back.

When her taillights disappeared into traffic, Chris remained in the empty lot, staring at the white card in his hand. The paper felt warm to the touch.

It had been a long time since he hadn’t thought about tomorrow’s calls or next month’s bills.

He was thinking about what he actually wanted.

And that terrified him more than anything Alexia had said.