Chapter 2 — A Name That Should Be Dead
758 Words
Calixta did not reply.
She stared at the phone until the screen dimmed, until the silence in her apartment pressed in around her like a held breath. Her mind raced through every rational explanation—wrong number, cruel coincidence, some elaborate joke—but none of them survived the weight of the words.
It took you longer to wake up this time.
No one else could have known.
She dressed quickly, movements sharp and practiced. Black jeans, a high-neck sweater, boots with heels low enough to run in if she had to. Habit. Survival. The past life had taught her that even beauty was a vulnerability, and she had learned not to decorate herself unnecessarily.
By the time she left her apartment, the sun was already climbing, pale and indifferent.
The city was loud in the way modern cities were—cars, voices, music leaking from open café doors—but Calixta moved through it detached, senses tuned inward. Every reflection in glass made her flinch. Every tall silhouette tightened something in her spine.
She told herself she was paranoid.
She had told herself that for years.
The coffee shop near her office was crowded, warm, and ordinary. She joined the line, exhaling slowly, grounding herself in the smell of roasted beans and sugar. This is real, she reminded herself. This is now.
“Calixta?”
The voice was wrong.
Too calm. Too precise.
Her body reacted before her mind did—shoulders stiffening, pulse spiking, breath locking in her chest. She turned slowly, already knowing what she would see.
He stood a few feet behind her, impeccably dressed in a dark coat that looked tailored rather than fashionable. His posture was relaxed, hands folded loosely in front of him, as if this were a planned meeting rather than an ambush. His face was different—sharper, older, sculpted by a world without crowns—but his eyes—
Her stomach dropped.
The same cool, assessing gaze. The same quiet certainty.
Voltaire Francisco smiled.
It was not a warm expression. It never had been.
“Still don’t like surprises,” he said mildly, as if commenting on the weather.
The room seemed to tilt. Calixta’s fingers curled into fists at her sides.
“You’re dead,” she said.
His smile widened just enough to be unsettling. “So are you.”
She stepped back, bumping into the counter. No one around them reacted. The barista continued taking orders. Laughter rose from a nearby table. The world carried on, oblivious.
“Say my name,” Voltaire said softly.
Her throat burned. “NO!.”
“Say it,” he repeated, patient. “I’ve waited a long time to hear it from this mouth again.”
Calixta swallowed hard. “How did you find me?”
“I always do.”
That same old answer. The one he had used in another life when she had asked how he knew her schedule, her letters, her private thoughts. He never explained. He never needed to.
“Whatever you think this is, you don’t own me anymore.”
Voltaire tilted his head, studying her as if she were a chessboard mid-game. “Ownership is such a crude word,” he said. “I prefer inevitability.”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She didn’t have to look to know who it was from.
He glanced down anyway. “You see? Even now, you respond to me.”
“I didn’t respond,” she snapped.
“You came,” he corrected gently. “You didn’t run.”
A memory rose unbidden—marble floors slick with blood, his hand steady as he held the sword, the way he had leaned in close, almost tender.
Calixta straightened, meeting his gaze head-on. “Why now?”
His eyes darkened, just a fraction. Enough to tell her the answer would not comfort her.
“Because,” he said, “this time, I intend to do it properly.”
The barista called her name.
The sound shattered the moment. Calixta seized it like a lifeline, grabbed her coffee, and walked past Voltaire without another word. Her legs trembled, but she did not falter.
At the door, she felt it—the unmistakable sensation of being watched.
Voltaire’s voice followed her, low and amused.
“Run if you like, Calixta. I enjoy the chase.”
Outside, the air was cold and sharp. She sucked in a breath, her heart pounding.
He was here.
Not a memory. Not a nightmare.
And whatever he was planning, it had already begun.
- Writer
