Whispers of Revenge

Ghost

დ Rosalie დ

I stood in the next aisle for longer than I should have, staring at nothing while my hands stayed locked around the trolley handle. My skin still felt wrong where Weston had touched me. Not painful. Not even lingering in a way that made sense. Just wrong. Like my body had rejected the contact a second too late. I forced myself to breathe.

In.

Out.

Again.

And again.

The store carried on around me as though nothing had happened. A child laughed somewhere near the front. A trolley rattled over uneven tiles. Two women spoke in low voices near the canned goods. Ordinary sounds. Harmless sounds. But my nerves were already stretched too thin, and every single one of them landed too sharply. I should have left. That would have been the sensible thing to do. Abandon the trolley and walk out. Get in my car and put as much distance between myself and the past as possible.

Instead, I stayed.

I made myself finish shopping because I refused to let Weston Graves drive me out of a grocery store in my own hometown. That refusal was the only thing holding me upright. I moved through the last few aisles in a cold blur. Pasta. More canned food. Soap. A fresh loaf from the bakery section that I didn’t even remember putting in the trolley. My mind kept snagging on the same thought and circling back to it with fresh disgust every time.

He hadn’t recognized me.

Not even for a second. What happened to me at sixteen had stayed alive in my body for ten years. It still lived under my skin. It still waited in certain smells, certain noises, certain spaces. And Weston had looked me over like I was just another woman in a*****e. Like nothing in his life had ever touched him deeply enough to leave damage behind. The humiliation of that sat low and ugly in my stomach. By the time I reached the till, I was holding myself so tightly together that even smiling felt impossible. The cashier looked young. Early twenties, maybe. Pretty in a tired way, with a messy ponytail and quick hands. Her name tag read Tammy. She glanced at my trolley, then at me.

“You found everything alright?” her tone was light, friendly, and oblivious. I nodded once.

“Yes,” she started scanning items, and I stood there trying not to look over my shoulder. Trying not to wonder whether Weston was still in the store. Trying not to imagine him laughing about me later in that thoughtless way men like him always seemed to. Tammy looked up again.

“You aren’t from around here, are you?” her question irritated me.

“I used to be,”

“Oh!” her face brightened with curiosity. “You visiting family?” I almost said no. Instead, I slid my card from my wallet and forced a smile.

“My mother,”

“Hmm,” she nodded as if that explained something to her. “People always come back for family,” something about the way she said it made my chest tighten.

Always come back.

As if this town had some natural pull, no one ever really escaped. She kept talking while she packed a bag with canned food and bread. Nothing cruel. Nothing sharp. Just that easy small-town friendliness that always came with too much interest tucked beneath it.

“Town has changed a bit,” she said. “Not much, though,” I gave a short laugh without humor.

“I noticed,” her gaze flicked over my face again, lingering slightly longer this time. Not recognition. Just curiosity. Trying to place me. Trying to connect me to a name or house or old story. Raven Hollow had always been good at that.

“You look familiar,” she said. I slid my card through the machine.

“I doubt that,” the words came out colder than I meant them to, but they did the job. She smiled awkwardly and looked back down at the register.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “Small town habit,” I collected the receipt, took hold of the bags, and left before she could say anything else. The cold outside hit my face immediately, sharper than before. The parking lot was half full. Gray light stretched across the rows of cars, dull and flat beneath the low sky. For one brief second, stepping outside felt like relief.

Then it didn’t.

I stopped beside the trunk of my car and set the bags down. A breeze moved through the lot, carrying the smell of rain and exhaust. I opened the boot and started loading the groceries in careful, steady motions. Milk first. Bread on top. Eggs last. My hands were steady now. That was something. I reached for the last bag and felt it. That shift in the air. That awareness. I knew then that someone was watching me, and my whole body tightened. For one ugly second, I thought Weston had followed me out. My back went rigid. My heart hit hard once against my ribs. I straightened slowly and turned, already braced for anger, disgust, another careless grin.

But it wasn’t Weston.

A dark SUV sat two rows over, and a man stood beside it with one hand resting on the open driver’s door.

Declan Carrington.

The sight of him hit differently. Not easier. Not harder. Just differently. Weston had felt like impact. Crude and immediate and filthy in the way it unsettled me. Declan felt like something slower and more dangerous. He had changed. Of course, he had changed. Ten years had passed. But some part of me had still expected to see a boy when I looked at him. Instead, I saw a man. Taller than I remembered. Broader too. Dressed simply in dark clothes that fit him too well. His face had sharpened with age, all hard lines and restraint. His hair was darker than the sky above us. His shoulders looked tight beneath his coat.

And his eyes were already on me.

Not curious. Not careless. He knew exactly who I was. The certainty of that went through me like a blade. I stood still with one hand gripping the edge of the boot. Cold air moved between us, but it felt thicker than that. Tighter. The whole parking lot seemed to recede until all I could hear was the distant hum of traffic and the blood moving too slowly through my body. Declan didn’t move toward me. That, somehow, made it worse. He stayed where he was, one hand still on the car door, his face unreadable from this distance and yet not unreadable at all. I could see it in the set of his shoulders. In the way he looked at me, too directly. In the tension he carried, like it had been there long before this moment.

He was affected.

I hated that I noticed it. Hated more that I noticed other things too. The roughness in his face now. The quiet strength in the way he stood. The control. The stillness. Attraction rose suddenly, hot and unwelcome. I wanted to tear it out of myself on sight.

No.

Absolutely not.

Not him.

Not ever.

Anger followed immediately, cleaner and easier to hold. Anger at him. Anger at this town. Anger at myself for seeing the man before I could stop seeing the boy who had stood there and done nothing. I should have looked away. I should have shut the boot, gotten in my car, and left. Instead, I stayed frozen, staring back at him while the confusion twisted deeper. Because he didn’t look smug. He didn’t look amused. He didn’t look untouched. He looked like a ghost had stepped out in front of him. Then, finally, his mouth moved. And in a voice so low I barely heard it across the cold air, he whispered my name.

“Rosalie,”

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