The silence of the library is deceptive. Ella can still hear her own heartbeat pounding like a drum in her chest after the first stranger vanished. Her body is a taut wire of confusion, every nerve frayed and trembling. She stumbles backward into another row of books, hands shaking as she presses her palm to her ear where his lips had been moments ago. The air feels heavy, charged, whispering secrets she can't understand.
Then she feels it.
A breath, not her own, warm and deliberate against the back of her neck.
She turns—and freezes.
He’s there. The second twin stranger.
Identical face. Identical frame. Same impossibly perfect, lean muscle beneath his black button-up shirt.
But his eyes.
Crimson.
Like burning coals beneath lashes too long to be real, and as they lock onto hers, th
