Chapter Nine: She Called One Name and Three Ghosts Answered
989 Words
The sun barely rose the next morning.
A heavy gray hung over Lyon like the city knew what was coming and didn’t want to get out of bed. Valentina sat on the edge of the roof, the Athena file open in her lap, wind tugging at the pages like it wanted to read them too.
Lucian stayed back, watching her through the sliding glass door. He hadn’t said a word since she showed him the list. Twenty-seven names, coded aliases, last known coordinates.
One thing they all had in common: they were buried in the system like forgotten weapons. Left behind. Waiting.
She ran her finger down the list until she found the one she couldn’t stop thinking about.
Codename: Selene
Last seen: Lisbon
Specialty: infiltration, psychological extraction
Status: inactive (presumed dead)
Valentina didn’t believe in ghosts.
But if her mother built this network for her, then the dead didn’t matter.
Only the loyal did.
They flew commercial.
No bodyguards. No entourage. Just her, Lucian, and Verona in a rented car that smelled like mold and cigarettes.
Lisbon was brighter than Lyon. Warmer. A city of tiled walls and secret hills, the kind of place you could hide a person or a body and no one would ever find either.
Verona guided them through narrow alleys until they reached an old cathedral-turned-school. Now abandoned. The door was chained shut. Lucian broke it with a crowbar and a curse.
Inside, dust and silence.
And the faint smell of incense.
Valentina walked the halls slowly, heels echoing.
“Why here?” Lucian asked.
Verona answered.
“Selene taught here. Before the war.”
Valentina touched a worn wooden desk. “Before Athena?”
Verona nodded. “Before everything.”
They found the first message on the wall behind a broken mirror.
Etched into the plaster with a blade.
“The first key is blood. The second is silence.”
Lucian muttered, “Cryptic.”
Valentina’s eyes narrowed.
“She left it for me.”
Verona frowned. “You sure?”
Valentina turned.
“This place isn’t random. The file listed Lisbon. But the page number she wrote her name on? Page forty-seven. Verse two. Just like the code Clara burned into my skin.”
Lucian’s face changed.
“So it wasn’t scripture. It was a breadcrumb.”
Valentina nodded.
“She wants me to follow her.”
The second message was deeper underground.
In the school’s basement, hidden behind a cabinet.
Scratched into metal.
“When you bleed, call me.”
Valentina touched the words.
Her fingers came away dusty.
Lucian looked at her.
“What does it mean?”
She didn’t answer.
She just reached into her coat, pulled out the knife she’d kept since the night she left the compound, and sliced a clean line across her palm.
“Valentina,” Lucian snapped.
But it was already done.
The blood hit the floor.
A low hum vibrated through the air.
A click.
Then a hiss.
The far wall groaned and slid open revealing a chamber lit by red bulbs.
And a woman inside.
Alive.
Watching.
“Selene,” Valentina said.
She looked the same.
Same scar across her cheekbone. Same tight braid. Same eyes gray and sharp like broken glass.
“You’re late,” she said.
Valentina exhaled.
“You’re real.”
Selene stepped forward.
“And you’re bleeding. Figures.”
Lucian pulled out a cloth, wrapped Valentina’s hand.
Selene watched him.
“Is he house-trained?”
Valentina smiled faintly. “He’s useful.”
Selene turned back.
“So. You woke us up.”
“Are there more?”
Selene nodded.
“Two others in this quadrant. But not all of them will answer.”
“Why not?”
“Because not all of them believe you’re her daughter.”
Valentina’s heart skipped.
“She didn’t tell them?”
“She told them someone would come. But not who. Some of them thought she meant Clara. Some thought it was metaphor.”
Valentina stepped closer.
“And you?”
Selene tilted her head.
“I believe in signs. And bleeding is the oldest one.”
They regrouped in a safehouse near the harbor.
Selene laid out a second list.
Twelve names.
“She built redundancy,” she said. “Three squads across the continent. One in Portugal, one in Romania, one unknown.”
Valentina traced the unknown.
“Who runs that one?”
Selene shrugged.
“She kept it in her head. Never wrote it down.”
Lucian frowned. “Then how do we find them?”
Selene looked at Valentina.
“You remember your seventh birthday?”
Valentina blinked. “Why?”
“Because your mother gave you a book that day.”
Valentina nodded. “A fairy tale book.”
“Inside the cover,” Selene said. “There was a name written in pencil.”
Valentina froze.
“Saint Elia.”
Selene grinned.
“That’s not a saint. That’s a code.”
The next morning, they moved again.
Selene in the passenger seat. Verona driving. Valentina and Lucian in the back.
“You okay?” he asked.
Valentina didn’t answer at first.
Then:
“I thought I was hunting for my father.”
Lucian looked at her.
“You’re not?”
“I think he’s just another piece.”
“Then what are you chasing now?”
Valentina turned to him.
“My mother’s last move.”
In the next city, they found another file.
And a name that hadn’t been spoken aloud in fifteen years.
Noemi Benedetto.
Valentina’s mother.
The last page was a picture.
A room filled with children.
And a single sentence handwritten across the top.
“The war will end when the daughter stops bleeding.”
Valentina touched her chest.
The mark burned.
Lucian leaned close.
“What now?”
She looked at him.
“I stop waiting to be hunted.”
She folded the paper.
“And start hunting back.”
- Writer
