When Ghosts Walk In
Selene
The rain came fast.
Not gentle. Not cinematic. Just loud and mean—like the sky had finally lost its temper.
I pulled my coat tighter and ducked into the first doorway I could find. The flickering neon above read *"Kismet Used Books."* A dusty relic tucked between a high-end gelato bar and a chain boutique. I'd never noticed it before.
But something about it pulled.
I stepped inside.
It smelled like yellowed paper and secrets.
Shelves towered over narrow aisles, sagging under the weight of forgotten stories. The hum of the storm faded behind thick windows, replaced by the soft tick of an antique wall clock and the occasional crackle of a radio playing something old and French.
I wandered.
Not looking for anything.
Until something looked for me.
---
I froze in aisle seven.
She was at the end.
Back turned. Long dark coat. Hair black as jet, braided tight down her back. She ran a gloved hand along the spine of a book like she was searching for a memory.
I don't know what made me stop.
Maybe it was the way she moved—too still. Too precise.
Like she wasn't browsing.
She was waiting.
Then she turned.
And my heart skipped so violently I almost choked on air.
Because for a split second—I saw myself.
Not exactly.
But enough.
Her eyes met mine.
Same shape.
Same tilt.
Different color—silver instead of blue.
But there was something familiar in the way she held my gaze.
Like she knew me.
Like she wanted me to.
---
She smiled.
Small. Tight. Unreadable.
Then walked past me without a word.
Her shoulder brushed mine as she passed.
Cold.
Deliberate.
I turned to speak—but she was gone.
Vanished between shelves like smoke.
No bell chimed.
No door opened.
Just… gone.
---
I stood frozen in that aisle, heart hammering.
I wasn't hallucinating.
I wasn't.
But something about her—
That braid.
That scar along her jaw.
Where had I seen it before?
Where—
She used to hum lullabies through the vent.
> You were never alone in there.
---
"Liora," I whispered.
But even as I said it…
Something inside me knew.
That wasn't Liora.
Not exactly.
That was something worse.
---
Lucian
Jax slammed a file down on the table.
"She's not dead."
I stared at the name on the top page.
NYX VELLEN.
Alias.
Age unknown.
No birth certificate. No record before 2012. No traceable past. No digital footprint that wasn't intentionally planted.
And the photo?
Taken two nights ago.
Inside a café.
In the background: Selene.
Foreground: *Nyx*.
"Tell me that's a coincidence," Jax said.
"I don't believe in coincidences."
Especially not ones with scars I'd seen before.
Because I remembered that face.
She'd stood behind Kearse once, in a video I was never supposed to see. Just a shadow in the corner. A ghost. The prototype before they *perfected the lie*.
Nyx was the trial run.
Selene was the final draft.
"She's watching her," I said.
Jax nodded. "The intel confirms it. But she's not trying to kill her."
"No," I said slowly. "She's trying to wake her up."
"Why?"
That… I didn't know yet.
But I would.
Because the woman I just saw in that photo—
She wasn't a loose end.
She was the scalpel.
And Selene?
She was the wound.
Elsewhere…
The bookshop's lights dimmed. A flicker—then steady again.
Nyx stood in the alley behind it now, her back against the wall, a cigarette burning between her fingers but never reaching her lips.
"She didn't recognize me," she murmured.
The voice behind her crackled through a comms piece. Male. Clinical.
"Good. Stay in the shadows."
Nyx exhaled.
But it wasn't relief.
It was frustration.
"She's remembering."
"Then let her."
Nyx's eyes stayed on the reflection in the shop window.
Selene, inside. Haunted. Off-balance.
"She's not ready."
"That's the point."
Nyx flicked the cigarette into the rain.
Her silver eyes narrowed.
"You want her broken."
A pause.
Then:
"No. I want her reassembled—into something useful."
Selene
I left the bookstore in a daze.
Didn't buy anything.
Didn't remember how I got back to the street.
All I could see was that face.
Those eyes.
And somewhere deep inside, something whispered:
You've met the other side of yourself.
And she's not finished.