Sophia felt more like she had concrete bricks attached to the end of her legs instead of feet. It was a miracle that she made it back to her car.

Her twelve-hour shift had been filled with patients from multiple car crashes, a construction mishap, alcohol poisoning from one of the UCLA frats, and thanks to a late outbreak of the flu, several sick children with their worried parents in tow. Not to mention, they were shorter in the E.R. than usual, when it came to both doctors and nurses. Sophia rarely had night shifts that crazy, and usually they fell on major holidays.

So her twelve hours had been nonstop work with only enough time to pee a few times and stuff an energy bar down her throat. If she hadn't had so much practice, she would be worried about getting home.

And to top everything off, Dean wouldn't even be there when she got home. He had just started a shift, and then just a few hours before he got home, she would be starting another one. Sophia hated it when their work schedules lined up like that.

Traffic was worse than it usually was. And this damn Subaru had been tailgating her, practically ever since she left the hospital.

"What the hell is your problem?" she muttered to herself, looking at the car in her rear-view mirror. Apparently, someone was anxious to get to work.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she turned into her and Dean's neighborhood. The buildings were all residential, so traffic thinned out significantly.

But the Subaru followed her.

"What the hell?" she repeated, her exhaustion causing anger to easily bubble up. "Leave me alone, bitch."

It was an unfair complaint. Whoever was behind her was probably just minding their own business and just happened to be going the same route she was.

But there was no reason for them to stay so damn close. One quick brake on Sophia's part would be all it would take for a fender bender.

"Okay, I don't like that," Sophia said to herself as she turned down her street.

The Subaru continued to follow her, and Sophia suddenly felt her mouth go dry, her hands clenching the steering wheel. The odds that someone was purposely following her were low. But what if...

"Okay, I guess we're going to act like a crazy person." The only consolation was that no one else would witness her crazy driving.

She took a right-hand turn. The Subaru followed

Another right. The Subaru kept on her tail.

Right again. Damn.

"Alright, get ready to high-tail it out of here, Sophia."

A fourth right. And the Subaru went straight.

Sophia slumped in her seat as her heart rate slowed, letting the car slow to a crawl. "And your exhaustion has turned to paranoia," she told herself. "Probably just some lost tourist all turned around on the streets, here."

By the time she parked her car, she had pretty much forgotten all about it.

"Hey," she said yawning as she entered the apartment, phone wedged between her shoulder and the side of her head.

"Hey," Dean's voice came from the other end, "you get home okay?"

"Yep." Sophia threw her bags down in the corner. She could deal with them later. "Exhausted, but I'm good."

"How was the shift?"

She just groaned. "I'll give you more details later," she promised. "But right now..."

"Get some sleep," Dean finished for her. "I know the exact sleepy expression you're making right now, and it's the one that always makes me want to hold you until you get at least a two-hour power nap."

"I wish you could. Hold me, right now."

"I know, me too." He let out a sigh. "I'll see you in a day and a half, okay?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

Falling into Dean's bed after showering and changing into her increasingly threadbare L.A.F.D. was the next best thing to actually falling into his arms. Sophia snuggled under the covers and into the pillows, letting his scent surround her and put her to sleep before she could even register how much she missed him.

Her alarm went off like a jackhammer to her skull. Sophia's arm appeared out of the mountain of covers and hit her phone several times before her brain started working and she actually turned it off. Groaning, she sat up. If she kept sleeping, she would be screwed for tonight and would never be able to get up for her shift tomorrow. But now, her mouth tasted stale and her head pounded.

As she made her way to the kitchen, her phone chimed. A faint smile drifted across her face as she grabbed it, but then she rolled her eyes when she saw it was Carson, not Dean, who had texted her.

Cap banned me from talking about this at the firehouse so now I gotta bother you with it. Told you it was a serial killer.

Oh, Jesus.

Sophia grabbed some breakfast and coffee before opening the link he sent her. The first was a brief article centered around a statement from the F.B.I. about a potential serial killer making their way across southern states.

She blinked at the names. She didn't recognize the first two, Helen Leighton and Jenny Lively, but the first one, Elizabeth Findlay, did stir a memory. She must have heard something about her on the news.

Another pause, this time her blood running cold. The feds had stated that all the women were white, blonde, between 5'3" and 5'7", between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-two, and worked in the medical field.

Sure, there were a lot of people who matched that description. But as she looked at the words, Sophia felt like she was staring into a mirror.

Okay. Last one.

Another text from Carson came through, along with another link, this time to one of his forums. With trembling fingers, Sophia clicked on it.

It really was just a lot of theories about who this man was, ranging in ridiculousness from D.B. Cooper to Liam Hemsworth. Nobody actually knew anything.

"You're overreacting," she chastised herself. "Stop being paranoid."

But she kept scrolling, not really reading people's theories but skimming enough to know what they were saying. She couldn't help it. Her finger just kept moving. She sat on the couch, her food long forgotten, eyes glued to the screen, desperate for something to tell her that she was wrong.

She found just the opposite. The headline read 'Local PD Leak!"

The leak was a picture. A picture of something that all three victims were found with.

Sophia's mouth ran dry.

She switched to Facebook and desperately searched through her friends' pictures, looking for the right one. The one with her and Graham on the beach. The one she had shown Dean all those months ago after their trip to the beach.

She found it and then zoomed in. Then she switched back to the forum.

It was the same. The gold necklace glittering around her neck from all those years ago was the exact same necklace found on three dead bodies.

Sophia froze in place, her hand gripping her phone so tightly that she thought it would crush in her palm. No. No way. Graham was horrible, but he wasn't a killer.

Even her thought lacked conviction.

"No, no, no," Sophia gasped, her breaths coming in quick and short. "No."

She went back to the forum, desperately scrolling through to find something that would prove her wrong. Something that would tell her that this was all one big coincidence and that her ex wasn't a serial killer.

A new post popped up with another article link.

It was an update to the F.B.I. press conference. Sophia's eyes blurred as she read through it at lightning speed.

They had a suspect. They didn't give a name but stated that they were actively pursuing someone over state lines.

Sophia's breathing slowed, her heart rate evening out. That was good. If they had a suspect, and that suspect was Graham, she doubted that even the feds could miss that he had a long-term girlfriend matching the exact description of the people he was murdering. And if they knew that, they would have come to warn her.

She got up and paced the room

It was just a coincidence that the victims matched her description. It was just a coincidence that they had the exact same necklace that Graham had once given her.

It was just a coincidence that earlier today, someone had appeared to be following Sophia home.

She froze in place. Had that been Graham? Had Graham been twenty feet behind her, only to leave her alone when she tested him?

No. No. She hated him, but she also knew him. And if he was going to follow someone, he wouldn't tailgate them. He was smarter than that.

"Just coincidences," Sophia whispered to herself. "Just coincidences."

Her eyes flickered over to her door. It was locked.

Her eyes did the same thing about once every two minutes as morning turned to afternoon and afternoon to night. She couldn't get herself to focus on anything throughout the day, and when it came time to finally sleep, it didn't come. Her ears strained for any unusual noise, any sign that someone was coming for her.

She knew she was being paranoid. Graham wasn't going to break into her apartment and kill her in her bed.

But, was it really paranoia if someone was actually out to get you?

Real threat or not, Sophia's exhaustion was very real when she turned up for her shift the next morning. She snapped at everyone, couldn't bring herself to smile at patients, and she was constantly distracted. Even Mateo kept his distance, although Sophia could sense a plethora of concerned glances coming her way. But she didn't need concern. She needed to get these ridiculous thoughts out of her head.

"Hey, baby."

Sophia nearly jumped out of her skin as she dragged herself back to the apartment. She had wound her way through unnecessary block after unnecessary block, trying to shake a tail that she didn't have. And that only made her more tired.

"Woah, hey, you okay?" Dean approached her with a worried frown.

"Just tired." Technically, it wasn't a complete lie. "I didn't sleep well last night."

Dean's frown deepened and he held out his arms. "Come here."

As Sophia sank into his embrace, she expected the fear and anxiety of the past day to wash away. She expected to come to her senses and realize she was making a big deal over nothing and that she was perfectly safe.

But none of that happened. Dean's arms couldn't act as a shield, not from this.

He was still worried when he let go. "Well, I'm about ready to drop," he admitted. "So unless you're hungry..."

Sophia shook her head. "No, no I just want to go to sleep."

But sleep took its time, once again. Even as she lay wrapped up in Dean's arms, a place that was supposed to be a safe haven, she had her eyes open, staring at the wall. His breathing evened out and his arms relaxed, but Sophia remained as stiff as a board.

There was a small but insistent part of her brain that maintained that nothing was going on. Everything was fine. And despite the rest of her brain telling her that she should tell Dean, call the cops, call the F.B.I., hell, call the army, if need be, that part of her didn't win out.

Denial was a powerful tool, and it was the only thing that allowed Sophia to fall into a restless sleep.