The Ghost’s Obsession

1

RAVEN

“You’ll be back here,” Marcela, the head guard, said, nudging me forward. Her breath smelled of stale coffee and mints. “Your type always comes back.”

“Miss me already?” I snickered, then blew my gum until it popped with a sound like a gunshot. “I haven’t even left.” The other guards at the gate flinched from the sound. Worth it.

Marcela herself had walked me from the changing room to the gate, watching me like I'd somehow smuggle the prison walls out in my backpack. Favorite inmate? Please. I was just the migraine she couldn’t get rid of.

The heavy barred gates of Sterling Correctional Facility finally groaned shut, but this time I wasn’t behind them. I was free.

The sky was painfully blue; clouds stretched like cotton across the horizon. For the first time in six months, I saw birds, real ones, not the pigeons that fought over scraps in the yard. They soared, wings catching the light, and I inhaled deeply, air filling my lungs like water after a drought. I stood there longer than I meant to. Nobody shouting, nobody fighting or trying to be handsy. Just the sky.

I slung my bag over my shoulder, the weight familiar and comforting, then I spat out my gum. Six months. I’d spent my eighteenth birthday in a cell with a toilet that wouldn’t flush and a roommate who talked to herself. Prison had stolen my eighteenth birthday. It wasn't getting nineteen too.

I stuck out my thumb, hoping to hitchhike out of this dump. I wondered if anyone was still at my old base, not like I was going back.

The road stayed empty for almost 20 minutes until…

"Where are you heading, miss?" A battered Honda Civic rolled to a stop beside me. The driver looked to be in his late forties, dirty blond hair sticking up in every direction, a smear of ketchup still clinging to his chin like he'd lost a fight with a burger.

I glanced up and down the empty road. No other cars. At this rate, I'd be walking until sunset.

"Sterling Heights," I said, sliding into the passenger seat. My bag rested on my lap while my hand slipped into my pocket, fingers curling around the handle of my pocket knife.

"Perfect." He pulled back onto the road. "That's where I'm headed too."

For a few minutes, only the hum of the engine filled the silence.

"You just got out?" he asked eventually, nodding toward the prison disappearing in the rear view mirror.

I looked at him, unsure whether to answer.

He smiled, though it didn't quite reach his tired eyes. "Don't worry. I'm not judging." He tapped the visitor's pass still clipped to his shirt. "My daughter is in there. Came to see her before driving back."

My shoulders relaxed a fraction.

"She's got another eight months," he continued. "Good kid. Just made one terrible decision."

I stared out the window. "Yeah... funny how one decision can cost you everything."

"I'm Eddy, by the way."

“Raven…” I hesitated, but there was no use hiding. It wasn’t exactly like Raven was a rare name.

Sterling Heights.

It was supposed to be a place where nobody knew my name. Funny how running toward a new life always made me look back at the old one.

Six months earlier...

The basement of the abandoned textile mill on 4th Street. The air had been thick with the smell of ozone and stale pizza, the hum of my rig a constant vibration in my bones.

“You sure you can pull this off, Rae?” Caleb’s voice was low, right beside my ear. I could feel the heat from his body.

“Not if you keep breathing on my neck, I can’t,” I shot back, not looking away from the screens. “Back up. Both of you.” This was our biggest mission yet. Unsanctioned. William, our handler, would’ve killed us for even thinking about it.

William ran the operation, took in strays like us, orphans and runaways with nowhere else to go. Gave us a roof, food, purpose. But his "family" was a barred cage, and freedom had a price tag none of us could afford. We were trapped.

That’s when Emmy stepped forward, her eyes gleaming with a dangerous light. “Remember that account William told me to drop?” she said, pulling up a screen filled with transaction logs. “I never did. The money flow... fifty million dollars—”

“A week?” Caleb cut in, his voice tight with disbelief.

“A day,” Emmy corrected, a slow smile spreading across her face.

We both stared at her. “Who the hell are they? f*****g Elon Musk?”

Emmy’s smile vanished. “Mafia. Drug money, probably.”

“No way,” I said immediately, leaning back in my chair. “That’s why William told you to drop it. Even he’s not stupid enough to cross them.”

“Rae, listen to me,” Emmy pleaded, grabbing my chair and spinning me to face her. “This is it. Our only way out. We get this money, we pay William off, and we have enough left to disappear. To really be free.”

Caleb’s eyes were locked on mine. Like I was the key to his freedom. I hated how right he was because without me, they were just good hackers. With me… we could be legends.

“I’ve been watching it for a week,” Emmy pressed, her voice dropping. “There’s over five hundred million in there. But it won’t last. The money moves every three days, like clockwork. If we don’t do this now, we’re stuck forever.”

My heart hammered against my ribs. Too easy. Life had taught me one thing: easy things came with a price, and this one would cost me everything.

I looked from Emmy’s desperate face to Caleb’s hopeful one, then back to the glowing screen. “I’m in.”

A whoop of joy from Caleb. Emmy let out a shaky breath.

“Do it,” Emmy commanded. “Transfer it now. To the Cayman account.”

My fingers flew across the keyboard. The code was elegant, simple. A backdoor in their encryption, a flaw in their firewall. In seconds, it was done. The confirmation flashed: TRANSFER COMPLETE.

As the numbers on the screen settled, my eyes caught the name attached to the account. Back then I didn’t pay attention to it, little did I know that it would hunt me like prey for the rest of my life.

…

“Miss? Miss, you okay?”

The voice cut through the memory like shards of glass. I blinked, the basement dissolving around me, replaced by the worn vinyl of a car seat, replaced by the faint scent of fast-food fries. Eddy was looking at me, his brow furrowed with concern.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, shaking my head to clear it. “Zoned out.”

“We’re here,” he said, his voice gentle now. “This your stop?”

“Yeah,” I forced a smile, my throat tight. I grabbed my bag and pushed the door open.

“Call me if you decide you want work,” he said. He reached into the cup holder and handed me a business card. "If you ever need honest work, give me a call. I own a small auto shop."

I looked down at the card. Eddy Collins

Collins Auto Repair.

"My daughter will need a fresh start when she gets out," he said quietly. "Everyone deserves one."

I hope he was right.

I stood on the curb and watched his Civic pull away, then turned to face the building in front of me. Sterling Towers. Poorly named for a dying complex, but it was the best I could do, booking it from inside prison with the almost useless library computer.

It was evening, people rushing past. I entered the complex, took the stairs instead of the crowded elevator. As I walked down my floor’s hallway, I bumped into someone.

A thin line of blood surfaced over my vein. I frowned. That hadn't happened from bumping into someone. My eyes lifted to his now closed door. My new neighbor had just cut me.

Then my phone vibrated.

UNKNOWN NUMBER

Welcome home, Raven.