The ghost car sat in the garage at the Montecito estate, breathing.
Not metaphorically. Actually breathing.
I stood beside it in the pre-dawn darkness, watching the matte black surface ripple like the skin of some massive, sleeping predator. Gold veins pulsed beneath the carbon fiber—or whatever the hell that material actually was—tracing patterns that looked like circuitry designed by something that had never heard of human engineering.
"Every time I look at this thing," Madison murmured beside me, "I feel like it's looking back."
She wasn't wrong.
The headlights—slits of luminescent blue that never quite turned off—tracked us as we circled the vehicle. Not obviously. Not in a way you could point to and say see, the car is watching. But if you paid attention, if you had enhanced perception dialed up to supernatural levels, you noticed.
The glow shifted. Followed. Observed.
"ARIA," I said aloud. "Final analysis?"
