Chapter 1
1996 Words
The alarm doesn’t ring. I never let it.
I’m already awake, just listening. Not for danger, not for peace, just... to know I’m still here.
My feet hit the cold floor. No flinch. I prefer it that way. It reminds me I haven’t gotten soft.
By the time the sun cuts through the metal blinds, I’ve already wrapped my knuckles. I stand in the center of my apartment gym—a minimal space of concrete, shadow, and iron. The punching bag swings gently, waiting. Like it knows me.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
The sound is steady, not violent. Precision over power. I don’t fight to feel strong. I fight so I don’t feel anything.
A digital timer beeps every twenty seconds. I reset it before the next round. Always. No room for error. No room for breath.
“I thought you were off-duty,” a voice crackles through the intercom. Riley. Of course.
“I am,” I say, slamming my fist into the bag one last time. “This is my version of rest.”
“You sound like a villain in a training montage.”
“I’m working on the villain part,” I mutter, tossing my gloves to the side.
She chuckles. “Yeah, well... you’ve got the tragic backstory and self-loathing down.”
“You don’t talk much, do you?” the client asks, pouring himself a glass of something older than his conscience.
“I don’t need to,” I say, eyes flicking toward the mirrored wall. Two cameras. One live. One decoy.
He leans back into his plush suite chair, smirking. “Bodyguards are usually more... visible.”
“I’m not a bodyguard,” I reply. “I’m the thing that keeps your name out of headlines.”
He laughs. Loud. Performative. “I like you.”
I nod once. Not a smile. Just a fact.
I clock the door latch. His assistant’s heels echo from the hallway. There’s tension in her stride. She knows something. Or she wants him to think she does.
I shift my gaze to the ceiling cam, watching his reflection more than his face.
“Anything I should be worried about?” he asks, pouring another drink.
“Always,” I answer. “But not tonight.”
He raises his glass. I don't. I never drink on the job. Or off.
I don’t trust anything that softens the edges.
The city’s too loud to sleep. Brooklyn always hums. Ambulance cries, radiator ticks, someone crying down the hall like they think no one hears. I hear everything.
I walk to the window, barefoot. My breath hits the glass before I do. It fogs over, inviting me in like a secret I shouldn’t tell.
With one finger, I trace the words.
She never left.
Behind the letters, my reflection stares back. Hollow. Still. Almost convincing.
“Who is she?” Riley’s voice breaks through from the intercom again. She’s been watching my feed. Of course she has.
“Just someone who stayed longer than she should’ve.”
Riley hesitates. “You ever gonna talk about her?”
“No.”
“She’s still in your window, Eden.”
“She’s just fog.”
I wipe the words away before they dry. Before I can mean them.
Outside, it starts to rain.
Because of course it does.
Brooklyn always cries louder when I don’t.
The subway lurches. I don’t. I’ve trained myself not to react to motion, only motive.
But then the violin starts.
It’s not the usual shrill street performer kind. It’s deep. Lingering. Like a voice caught between apology and goodbye.
The bow slides across the strings and something in my chest stutters. Then clenches. My fingers wrap tighter around the cold metal pole.
The sound wraps around the car like silk and static. I hate it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” an old woman beside me murmurs.
I nod. I don’t trust my voice to lie today.
The train speeds into darkness, and just for a second, I see her. Bathed in sun, bow to strings, head tilted in grace. My mother.
I blink. She’s gone.
The melody hits a high note.
I look down at my hands. They’re steady, but the memory shakes everything else.
Music doesn’t scare me. What it remembers... does.
The second I walk into the apartment, I see it, tiny, blinking red in the dark.
Low battery on the deadbolt.
I drop my bag. No shoes off. No unwinding. Just straight to the drawer where I keep backups. Lithium. Charged. Ready.
Click. Replace. Seal. Reset. Confirm.
The blinking stops.
Control restored.
I exhale. Not relief. Just release. Like exorcising static from the air.
“Most people wait until it dies,” Riley’s voice chirps through the speaker again. She has a sixth sense for catching me in my rituals.
“Most people like being vulnerable,” I mutter, heading to the sink.
She’s quiet for a beat. “You do realize your apartment is Fort Knox, right? If the Russians came for you, they’d knock politely.”
“They’d still get shot.”
I pour water. Let it sit untouched.
It’s not about the lock. It never is.
It’s about knowing nothing gets past me. Because once, something did.
And I never forgot.
Dinner is salmon. Skin crisped just right. Quinoa. Steamed greens. Perfectly portioned.
Not because I care about nutrition. Because I need the illusion of order.
I eat standing, one hand on the counter, the other holding the fork like a scalpel. No music. No TV. Just the hum of the fridge and the faint dripping of the faucet I still haven’t fixed.
The plate’s clean in minutes. Not a smudge. Not a spill.
Then it vibrates.
I don’t need to look. I already know.
DAD – UNKNOWN.
The name never saves. Always calls. Same time. Never leaves a message.
I stare until it stops.
Then again.
Vibrate.
DAD – UNKNOWN.
I let it ring out. Like I always do.
Because I already know what he wants.
And he already knows I’ll never give it.
I rinse the plate. Dry it. Put it back.
As if nothing was ever there.
Just like he taught me.
Three turns left. Two right. One full spin.
The safe clicks open like muscle memory. The smell hits me first. Cold steel, dry ink, and gun oil.
I scan the contents: Glock 43, backup mags, burner phone, passports. All untouched.
Except the files.
One folder is slightly off-center. Thin, black, unmarked. Barely noticeable. But I notice. I always do.
I crouch. Stare.
I don’t reach for it. My fingers curl just short of the paper. Like contact will confirm what I already feel in my gut.
The folder’s not mine.
I didn’t leave it like that.
Taped inside the flap is a folded piece of notepad paper. Ripped edge. Slanted handwriting. Like a whisper.
You were never supposed to come back.
No signature. No stain. No threat.
But the dread climbs my spine like it knows its way home.
I put the folder back.
Re-lock the safe.
I don’t sleep that night.
I just listen.
The bell above the door jingles as I step into the corner store.
Fluorescents buzz overhead, too bright, too white. The kind of light that makes everything feel like surveillance. The floor tiles squeak under my boots.
I’m reaching for bottled water when it happens.
A shoulder brushes mine. Too close. Too intentional.
My hand goes to my side, out of instinct. Not fear. Just readiness.
I spin. Nothing.
Just a teenage couple near the candy aisle, a man on his phone by the freezer, and an old woman arguing with the lotto machine.
No one’s looking at me. But that’s the thing about ghosts. They don’t have to.
Above me, the ceiling camera flickers once. Then steadies.
That’s enough.
I set the bottle down and leave without paying.
On the way out, I glance back. Just once.
The guy by the freezer is gone.
The old woman is still yelling.
But I feel watched.
Like I never left their sight.
There’s dust on the box. That’s the first lie.
I slide it out from under the bed like I’m digging up a body. It scrapes the floor, quiet but not silent. Nothing in this room is truly silent.
Inside: a knife I don’t use anymore, a pack of nicotine gum I never chewed, and a black notebook with frayed corners and my mother’s initials scratched inside the cover.
I sit on the edge of the mattress. Open to a blank page. The pen shakes just enough to piss me off.
Things that don’t hurt anymore.
I stare at the sentence like I want to believe it. Then write:
1. Him
My hand freezes.
Then, underneath it…
(lie)
I press the pen harder than I should. The ink bleeds through the page.
I snap the notebook shut. Shove it back in the box.
It doesn’t matter how deep you bury a wound.
Some pages bleed anyway.
The café is all neon menus and over-sugared lattes, but Riley Hart thrives in the chaos. Her hair’s in a half-bun that defies gravity. Her hoodie says “Trust Issues Are Just API Warnings.”
She types like she’s arguing with the keyboard.
Two screens open. One is code: fast, color-coded lines scrolling like a heartbeat. The other?
A split surveillance feed.
Eden, in grayscale, standing at her window again. Still. Silent.
Riley pauses, leans closer.
“Still ghosting, huh?” she mutters, stirring her espresso with a plastic straw. “Thought so.”
A barista calls her name. She ignores it.
She zooms in on Eden’s reflection. Her face is blank, but Riley frowns.
“She’s not sleeping again. And she’s lying to herself. I can smell it through the firewall.”
She types in a new command.
[TRACK: HEATMAP – EXTERNAL THREATS]
The program loads. Red flickers across the screen.
“Don’t worry, B. I’m still watching you.”
Someone has to.
Riley narrows her eyes at the screen. One of her silent cams (tapped from a corner store’s dusty dome camera) feeds a flickering image. It’s Eden. Half-shadowed, half-lit, framed in a convenience store mirror between aisles of instant noodles and expired aspirin.
She’s not scanning. Not aware. Just... still.
Riley leans forward, the tip of her nose nearly touching the screen.
“No,” she mutters. “Nope. That’s not you.”
She types in a new string, fast.
[REWIND – FRAME-BY-FRAME – MIRROR REFLECTION]
She catches it: Eden flinching, just slightly, when someone brushes past her shoulder.
“You’re slipping, B,” she whispers, as if Eden could hear her. “That’s not good.”
Riley reaches into her coat, pulls out a flash drive. Stares at it. Debates using it.
“Please tell me you’re not about to start feeling things.”
She slams her laptop shut, slings it over one shoulder, and walks out.
She’s not a bodyguard. But she plays one when Eden forgets how to protect herself.
Eden sits at her kitchen counter again. Same plate. Same food. No expression. She eats like it’s punishment. Slow. Mechanical. Like chewing the silence down to something she can swallow.
The window behind her is fogged again. But tonight, she doesn’t write anything on it.
She just stares at the empty space across the counter like it might remember someone who used to sit there.
Across the city, Riley pauses mid-step on the sidewalk, her laptop glowing faintly through her bag’s zipper. She pulls it out, flips it open on a park bench.
Live feed. Eden. Same posture. Same silence.
Riley exhales.
“She’s eating standing up again,” she mutters. “Damn it, B.”
She pulls her hood up. Rain starts to fall. They won’t feel it the same way.
“We all disappear differently.
She just learned how to make it look clean.”
Riley watches.
Eden pretends she doesn’t need to be seen.
- Writer
