I’m a Ghost, I’ll Be the Luna Again

Chapter 4

Lilith is on the sofa when we arrive.

She has that thing she does—arranging herself to look accidentally beautiful. Feet tucked under her, hair falling just so, a book open in her lap that I'd bet every molecule of my dead existence she hasn't actually been reading.

Kalen crosses the room in six strides and stops two feet in front of her.

Lilith tilts her face up. Soft. Attentive. Concerned.

"You look terrible," she says. "What happened?"

"The pup." His voice is stripped of everything. "Explain it to me."

Something moves behind her eyes. Fast. Gone.

"What pup? Kalen, I don't—"

"The supplies." He drops the death registration on the coffee table between them. Face up. "You swapped the silver-purge compounds. You cut off the supply entirely. Tell me why."

Lilith stares at the document.

Her hand, which had been reaching for his arm, settles back into her lap.

"I can explain." Her voice stays soft. Steady. Remarkable, really—five years of practice will do that. "My old injury was flaring. You remember—the attack the year before? I needed those compounds. I was going to replace them before it became critical."

"Before it became critical," Kalen repeats.

"I didn't know how serious it was. Ethan tends to exaggerate—"

"You blocked Ethan's access to the reserve stores." Kalen's voice drops to something dangerous. "I checked the inventory logs. You used your standing access—on my behalf—to lock him out entirely."

Lilith blinks.

And there's the moment she knows the story won't hold.

I watch her recalculate. A chess player realizing she's three moves from checkmate, pivoting to sacrifice a pawn.

She slides off the sofa.

Onto her knees.

"You're right." Her voice breaks—perfectly. "I panicked. I was scared about my own health and I wasn't thinking clearly about what Ella needed. I was wrong. I've carried that guilt for five years." Her hands reach for his. "I'm so sorry, Kalen. I'm so—"

Five years, I echo. How convenient. I've been dead for exactly that long.

Kalen looks down at her.

"Get up," he says.

"Kalen—"

"Get up."

She rises. The tremor in her lip is exquisitely calibrated.

"Whatever you need," she whispers. "Anything to make this right."

"Stay in the pack house." Alpha-flat. The tone that means the discussion is over. "Don't contact anyone outside these walls until I say so."

"Of course." She reaches for his face. "Of course, whatever you—"

The mind link flares.

Kalen steps back from her reaching hand. Not dramatically. Just—one step back. Like he doesn't want her fingers to land.

Declan. His inner voice through the link is pulled tight.

Alpha. Declan's reply is equally taut. I have it. You need to hear this in person.

Talk.

A pause. Two seconds too long.

Lilith has had ongoing contact with the Frost Pack leadership for six years. She's been feeding them patrol routes, territorial boundaries, pack numbers. Another pause. The border breach three weeks ago—she gave them the gap in our coverage.

Kalen doesn't move.

Five years ago—the intelligence leak that Ella took the fall for, the charge that nearly cost us the northern territory— Declan's voice drops to almost nothing. That was Lilith. Ella was innocent. She always was.

The room is very quiet.

Lilith is still looking at Kalen with that soft, open, waiting expression—waiting for him to say something she can work with.

She doesn't know.

She doesn't know he just heard everything.

The mind link pulses again. Ethan this time, a separate channel. Short.

Four words.

Ella's cause of death.

And then, below it: Frost Pack silver blade.

I watch the moment it hits him.

It's like watching a shift forced on him against his will—his whole body flinching inward, just once, just for a second, before he locks everything back down.

He turns and walks out the door.

He doesn't look at Lilith.

He doesn't say a single word.

She calls after him. "Kalen? Kalen, where are you—"

The door shuts.

I drift through the wall after him, and in my wake I hear Lilith sit back down on the sofa—slowly, deliberately—and begin to think very carefully about what comes next.

Think fast, I tell her image, already fading behind me. He's done thinking about you.