Shadows With Names
1016 Words
Zaria's
The capsules were alphabetized again.
Dark Roast. Decaf. Espresso. Hazelnut.
Everything in neat rows, clean and perfect and safe.
My fingers itched to misplace one, just for the chaos of it, just to see something fall out of line, because everything inside her already had.
He’d found me. Somehow.
Tall, broad-shouldered, quiet in a way that unsettled. A voice like velvet soaked in whiskey, eyes that didn’t flinch. Eyes that saw her, not the uniform, not the badge, just her.
The way he held out my ID, like it mattered. Like I mattered.
I should’ve thanked him but I didn’t.
The ID.
I’d realized it was missing too late, somewhere between room service and the service pantry. The strap had frayed days ago; I’d meant to replace it. But time slipped when you were busy hiding—dodging memories, folding yourself into smaller, safer shapes.
So I’d carried on, pretending I still had it. Pretending she was whole.
Then he came, slicing through the quiet.
“You forgot this.”
Just that. No hello. No smile.
Only my name in his mouth like it was something sacred or broken.
I took the card, fingers brushing his. Static snapped between them, sharp in my molars, humming in my ribs.
Something about him pressed in close, not physically, not yet but like he was already inside my story, reading ahead.
Then he said it.
“Vettores stole your designs.”
I wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or ask him how many favors he’d called in to figure that out.
Instead, I said nothing.
What could I say? I know. I lived it. I bled for it.
He talked like it was new. Like it hadn’t already hollowed me out.
Later that night, I mopped the hallway floor until my shoulders ached.
He found me again. Same voice. Same insistence. Showed me a screen with my own stolen designs, gold and black, cold and sharp, my signature twisted into someone else’s triumph.
My throat went tight.
He asked what I wanted.
I gave him silence.
He said my name—not just Zaria, but like it was meant for something more.
I stepped into the elevator. The doors shut before I could decide what that meant.
Now.
I stood in the breakroom, arms braced against the sink, breath slow and uneven.
My eyes burned.
I hadn’t cried.
Not since London. Not since my mother’s lungs almost gave out. Not since the gold turned to ashes.
The uniform itched against my skin. My curls were pinned, but one had slipped free, brushing her cheek like a whisper.
The break clock ticked. The staff radio buzzed. Someone laughed two floors below.
I barely heard it. And maybe that was what scared me most — not the truth, but how much it might cost to say it out loud.
“That’s expensive,” I’d told him. And it was. Truth always was. It asked for pieces of me I hadn’t figured out how to give away.
Only one thing rang loud in my head.
That man. His voice. His certainty. His knowing.
I left the hotel at 11:02 AM.
Radcliffe to Renshaw. Bus to Station Street. Walk to Wingate Medical.
My mother looked better today, pale, but smiling, knitting needles in her lap, slow and steady.
We talked about nothing. The kind of nothing that held everything together.
Then a nurse passed by. Tall, braids tucked under a tartan band, familiar.
I turned, heart thudding. “Alesha?”
The nurse paused. Then her face broke open. “Zaria?”
And suddenly, memory cracked like ice.
Oxygen tubes. Gasping. Alarms. My mother slipping.
Alesha pressing the mask down, shouting for help, whispering, I’ve got her, love. She’s not going anywhere.
I hadn’t forgotten. Just folded it away.
Now, she clung to the present like it could rewrite the past.
Alesha’s arms were warm. Solid. Safe.
I left the hospital heavier than when I’d entered.
And lighter, somehow.
That night, at 2:46 AM, I stood by the service lift, watching shadows crawl across the floor. I thought of his voice again, of the way he’d said he’d pay for the truth like it was currency he didn’t mind losing.
But I knew better. People like him didn’t pay, not really. They bargained. They measured loss in decimal points. And I was tired of being the math no one did right.
The elevator dinged.
He was already standing there when the doors opened, waiting.
Not a word passed between us.
I watched him. Silently.
Quietly.
He didn’t move.
Neither did I.
Somewhere below us, a door slammed. A cleaner muttered a prayer.
He just stood there, as if this moment — this pause — held more weight than the hours behind it.
I thought he might speak again.
Maybe call me Zaria like he had before.
Maybe apologize for knowing too much.
He didn’t.
Instead, he stepped aside.
Not into the hallway. Not away.
Just enough to let me pass.
Like he was inviting me into something I wasn’t ready for.
Truth?
Danger?
Answers?
I wasn’t sure.
But my feet moved anyway.
Past him.
Into the lift.
Into whatever came next.
He stepped out again.
He stayed there as the doors began to close , still watching me.
He seemed close and familiar, like he had lived in my memories for lifetimes.
The name was subtle, almost whispered. Whitmore.
Then it clicked.
Whitmore Conglomerate. He was the son of Hugh Whitmore.
What the f**k.
But that wasn’t the part that mattered most.
It was how he felt both distant and too close — like a dream I wasn’t sure I’d woken from, or a ghost who knew too much.
And that unsettled me more than his name ever could.
I didn’t know if I could trust him. But trust wasn’t the question anymore.
The question was why a Whitmore would care about a stolen sketchbook, a forgotten intern, a name like mine and why his voice sound like something I’d once believed in. Something real.
The elevator dinged again and the doors slid open.
- Writer
