---
I stood there.
Still.
As if nothing had happened.
The truck was halfway down the road, brakes screeching, horns blaring, people screaming. But I wasn't blinking. I wasn't moving. I wasn't breathing.
I looked down.
My body was... there.
Folded up like some forgotten laundry. Bones at the wrong angles. Blood on the pavement like spilled paint. Limbs jerking ever so slightly as the nerves fired their final desperate signals.
Huh.
So that's what I looked like from the outside. Not great.
I took a step forward, confused by how weightless I felt. My shoes didn't touch the ground. My foot passed through the ground. And I mean through. No resistance. No friction. Just cold.
Astral form.
I was in astral form.
That wasn't supposed to happen.
Mission protocol was clear. If you die in your proxy body, the mission ends. System yanks you out. Hard reset. No second chances.
So... why the hell was I still here?
"Ziva," I called. My voice was strange. Thinner than usual. Echoing like I was shouting inside a church bell.
She turned around—slowly. Her eyes went wide.
"You—"
"Yeah," I cut in. "I noticed."
"You died."
"No kidding."
She ran to the body—my body—like that would help. People were gathering now. The driver was out, panicking, shouting about how I jumped in front of him. Ziva looked at them, then back at me—no, through me. Like her eyes were trying to find the line between ghost and guilt.
I floated toward her. "Why am I still here?"
Her mouth parted slightly. Then she whispered the words like a secret she hadn't meant to ever say out loud:
"I read something. In the system archives."
"Oh, this is gonna be good."
She kept her voice low. "If a user dies during a shared mission, and they're not alone, their soul tethers to the one who survives... until the mission completes."
"Tethers?"
"You can't leave me."
I blinked. "Like... proximity based?"
She nodded. "Five feet radius. Maximum."
"You've got to be joking."
Ziva didn't smile. "Sorry, Woman doesn't joke."
Of course not.
I looked at my hands. Semi-transparent now. The edges of my form flickered like static. No weight. No breath. No heartbeat. Just me. Hanging. Watching. Dragged behind her like a cosmic balloon.
I sighed. "So I'm stuck with you."
She nodded. "Until we finish the mission."
"And the mission..."
She turned her head toward the building. Third floor. Apartment 3B. I could feel the energy signature already.
"She's inside?"
"Yeah. The mother."
I rolled my eyes. "Let's get it over with. Quick kill, reset, boom—we're back in our bodies and I'm filing a complaint the size of an asteroid."
But she shook her head. "No."
"No?"
"I'm not killing her."
Oh no.
Oh hell no.
"What do you mean you're not killing her? She beat her child to death. To death, Woman. That's what the report said."
"I know. I read it."
"And you're hesitating why?"
"Because," she said, voice calm, "I think she can change."
I stared at her. I floated closer—within my cosmic five-foot leash. "You think she can change?"
"Yes."
"She murdered her child, Ziva."
"She was abused. She broke. Something inside her snapped."
"And it'll snap again. That's how cycles work. You think she's gonna go meditate and join a book club after this?"
Ziva didn't look away. "I'm going to try."
My laugh was bitter. "You are so new to this job."
Her expression darkened slightly. "I'm not new. You just never gave me a chance."
"You never earned one."
That hit harder than it should've. Her eyes flickered down to the ground. "Well, you're stuck with me now. So maybe it's time you did."
I didn't reply. I floated in silence as she walked up the stairs. And I had no choice but to follow—like a ghost with a chain around my neck.
---
Three flights later, we were standing in front of the door.
Ziva knocked. Knocked.
"She's not gonna let you in to hug it out."
But she didn't answer me. The door creaked open.
A woman—late 30s, eyes hollow, hair matted, bruises she probably gave herself in some sort of twisted guilt spiral—stood there.
She looked at Ziva like she was the devil.
And Ziva smiled.
"Hi," she said softly. "My name is Elise. I'm with Family Services."
I turned to her. Elise?
She shrugged. "Fake name. For the mission."
"And what's mine?"
She smiled. "Dead."
I hated her a little less just then.
As they stepped inside, I felt the leash around my soul tighten. And I followed.
Not because I wanted to.
But because I couldn't leave.
Not yet.
Not until she either saved a monster...
Or proved me right.
And buried her.
---
Seven days.
That's what I gave her.
Seven days to change a woman who had already crossed the line—who had beaten the very life out of her own child.
Ziva, or as she insisted—the woman—stood tall in front of me, her eyes steady, her heart stubborn. There was a defiant hope in her that made me sick. Hope was a foolish thing in places like this.
"Tethered," she whispered when I confronted her in a quiet panic. "I read it in the system's old logs. If one of us dies during a joint mission, we become bound to the other."
"And you thought that might be important to mention?"
"I didn't think you'd actually die."
"...Fair."
I couldn't go more than five feet from her. It wasn't a rule. It was a law. The moment I drifted beyond that radius, my form shimmered, my essence pulsed painfully, and I was yanked back like a dog on an invisible leash.
So there I was. Dead. Frustrated. Fuming. Floating.
And useless.
Except for advice.
Which, in this case, felt a lot like yelling from a locked room while someone tried to defuse a bomb with chopsticks.
The house was worse than I expected.
Rotting porch. Flies gathering on a cracked window. Screaming—constant screaming—from inside. The kind of screaming that didn't end when the door closed.
Ziva went in alone.
She said she wanted to talk.
To try.
The woman—the woman, not my woman—was a snarling beast of a mother. Skeletal cheeks. Yellow teeth. Dead eyes that hadn't seen beauty or kindness in years. She laughed when Ziva tried to explain why she was there.
"You a cop?"
"No."
"Therapist?"
"No."
"Preacher?"
Ziva hesitated. "...Closer."
She was thrown out thirty seconds later. Literally.
The door slammed. A beer bottle shattered on the sidewalk behind her.
"You see now?" I said, voice icy in her ear. "You see what people like her become?"
"I still believe she can change."
"Why?" I snapped. "Why? Because you want to prove a point? Because you need to believe everyone can be redeemed?"
"Because if I don't," she said quietly, brushing the dirt from her dress, "then what's the point of anything we do?"
I didn't answer.
I couldn't.
Because in that moment, something twisted in me.
And before I could process it, the kid—the son—came out.
Little. Thin. Broken nose. Hollow eyes. Silence wrapped him like a second skin. He watched us walk down the sidewalk, expression unreadable.
But then—
He moved.
Fast.
A rock in his hand. Rage in his bones.
He ran at Ziva. Raised his arm to hit her.
She gasped and turned too slow.
I shouted—uselessly—"Left! Duck! No, roll right!"
She moved—but clumsily.
She didn't know how to fight.
Didn't want to.
And then—
Instinct.
Or maybe desperation.
Maybe fate.
I don't know what it was, but I entered her body like slipping into a glove I didn't remember owning. It wasn't planned. It wasn't controlled. I didn't even know if I could do it.
But suddenly—I was her.
Her heartbeat thudded in my chest.
Her breath dragged through my lungs.
But my hands… were mine now.
And one of them reached up and caught the boy's fist mid-swing.
His knuckles smashed into my palm.
He froze.
I smiled.
Not her smile.
Mine.
And for the first time since I'd died…
I felt alive again.
---