“Step back.” Adrian’s voice was sharp enough to cut through the shock still hanging in the air. Not panic. Not confusion. Control trying to reassert itself. But no one moved, not me. Not Aiden. Not even the figure standing beside him. Because the person beside Aiden should not have been alive.
My chest tightened, not in fear, but in refusal. The mind rejects what the eyes confirmed. “No,” I said quietly. The word didn’t shake, shake; it didn’t need to. Adrian glanced at me immediately. “You know them.”
It wasn’t a question.
Aiden’s gaze shifted between us, slow, almost studying the fracture forming in real time.
“Of course she does,” he said. The second figure finally moved. One step forward, slowly. Measured. And suddenly the room felt smaller. Not because of space. Because of memory,
