The sound of cameras was deafening.
They didn't just flash, they screamed, clicking in endless staccato like machine guns disguised as admiration.
Light fractured across the hotel ballroom, bouncing off glass chandeliers and polished marble, chasing me wherever i sat.
I was the prey, the spectacle, the goddess in a cage.
And i knew exactly how to play the role.
I leaned into the spotlight, pen in hand, and signed another glossy hardbound cover of The Art of Silence.
The irony always amused me, silence was my art, yet my life was anything but quiet. Noise clung to me, from the headlines that bore my name to the whispers that stalked my shadow.
"Ms. Alcantara, can i get a photo with you?"
Her voice trembled. Young, maybe twenty-one. Eyes wide, reverent. She slid her book toward me as though it were an offering at an altar.
I looked up.
A thousand people looked back, some with awe, some with envy, some with that mixture of fascination and fear i had mastered provoking.
The journalist who exposed ministers, the author who bled truth onto pages, the woman who never cracked.
That was the legend of Coleen Alcantara.
I smiled, precise and deliberate.
Not too warm, not too distant.
The kind of smile that sold magazines and frightened liars.
She gasped, thrilled at being seen, as though the goddess had descended.
"Of course," I said. I stood, the silk of my dress flowing like armor, and posed. Chin high. Shoulders square.
The flash blinded, capturing a moment i'd forget in seconds but she would replay for years.
The mask was perfect.
But masks are heavy.
Another signature.
Another handshake that lingered too long. Another murmur of "I admire you so much."
My pen carved my name like a blade: Coleen Alcantara. Over and over until the ink itself felt like blood.
This was my throne.
This was my hell.
And then—
The crack.
Sharp. Violent.
Tearing through the air with a finality that didn't belong here.
For a fraction of a second, the world froze.
My mind registered it before my body could.
A gunshot.
Screams shattered the illusion.
Chairs scraped.
Books fell like useless shields.
I felt the heat pierce my side before i even saw the blood.
My pen slipped from my fingers, rolling off the table, forgotten.
I collapsed.
Silk soaked red.
The chandeliers above me blurred, the lights swinging like dying stars.
My ears rang with chaos, security shouting, people trampling, cameras still flashing as though even death was a photo opportunity.
But all i could feel was warmth spreading, sticky, unstoppable.
I gasped, tasting copper.
The room tilted.
My name was still being shouted, still being screamed, "Coleen! Coleen!", but i couldn't answer.
I fell into the dark.
-
When my eyes opened, I was not in a hospital.
I was in my bed.
White sheets, neatly folded as i left them.
The hum of the air-conditioning.
The faint bitterness of yesterday's coffee grounds left abandoned on the counter.
My condo.
My sanctuary.
I sat up so fast the world spun.
My hand flew to my side, to where the bullet had torn me open. Nothing. No wound, no blood. Just skin. Just me.
"What the hell…" My voice cracked against the silence.
I stumbled into the bathroom, flicked the light on.
The mirror reflected a ghost, pale skin, hair tousled, eyes wide and uncertain. Not the predator the world feared, not the alpha woman who dismantled men in suits with a single stare.
Just a woman who had bled, who had fallen, who now stood untouched.
I touched the glass.
Cold. Real.
A dream? A nightmare? Hallucination? My journalist's brain began its ruthless interrogation.
I catalogued details, tried to reconstruct the narrative. None of it made sense.
And then i heard it.
The sound.
Thumping. Dragging. The dull scrape of furniture against tile, muffled voices pushing through the wall.
My sanctuary, disrupted.
I froze, listening.
Then anger sparked.
I wrapped my robe tighter and stepped into the hallway, heels clicking against polished floor.
My silence was my weapon; my fury, my shield.
The noises grew louder, boxes shifting, a laugh, the sound of someone moving in.
I knocked. Hard.
The kind of knock that had once made senators sweat.
The door opened.
He stood there.
Tall. Sharp features softened only slightly by the mess of dark hair falling over his forehead.
A collared shirt rolled at the sleeves, veins visible against tanned skin.
But it wasn't his looks that held me.
It was his eyes.
Calm. Steady. The kind of eyes that saw through facades, dissected lies, stripped armor.
A lawyer, my instincts whispered.
"Yes?" His voice was measured, controlled, like every word had been rehearsed in a courtroom.
"You're noisy."
One brow rose. "I'm moving in."
"And?"
"And noise comes with it."
I tilted my head, lips curving into the smile that had destroyed reputations. "Keep it down. Or i'll make sure management does."
Most men would've stumbled.
Apologized. Flinched. But not him.
He smiled instead. Small. Controlled. Almost amused. "Duly noted."
And he shut the door.
The audacity.
I stood there, pulse racing.
Not from attraction.
Never.
From the fact that he hadn't bent, hadn't feared me.
That calm defiance was more irritating than the noise itself.
Back inside my unit, I poured wine into crystal and sat on the leather couch, city lights bleeding in through glass.
My side still tingled, phantom pain haunting me.
The gunshot.
The fall.
The blood.
It felt too real.
My body remembered what my skin did not.
I stared at the ceiling, wine burning down my throat, and whispered the question that clawed at me:
"If i never died, why does it feel like i already have?"
The words clung to the air, heavy, unanswered.
The city outside hummed in neon and metal, alive and unbothered, while my world sat in fragments.
I poured another glass, the crimson liquid trembling in my grip.
My reflection glimmered in the wine, distorted, fractured. My lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
Maybe this was what madness tasted like.
I pressed my palm to my ribs again, half-expecting blood to bloom under my touch. Nothing.
Smooth skin, flawless as ever.
Yet in the back of my mind, I felt it, the sharp bite of the bullet, the heat, the collapsing chaos. My body was a liar. My memory was not.
I laughed under my breath, sharp and humorless. "Fantastic, Coleen. You're haunted by a crime scene that doesn't exist."
The glass wobbled on the edge of the table as i set it down, spilling a drop that bled into the marble like a warning.
I tried to think of rational explanations. Stress. Exhaustion. Too many deadlines, too many eyes watching me, too many skeletons i had locked in my own closets.
Journalists live on caffeine and paranoia, maybe i had finally snapped.
But the truth was uglier.
My mind wasn't tired.
My heart was.
I thought of him.
My ex.
The one who had promised permanence, only to dissolve into betrayal.
The one who had made me believe in forever, and then proved that "forever" could last just long enough to destroy you.
I could still taste the bitterness of that night, the unanswered calls, the lipstick on his collar, the pathetic excuses.
Love had been the first bullet.
Tonight was only a reminder.
I stood, pacing barefoot across the cold floor, every step echoing louder in the silence. My reflection in the glass windows followed me, an alpha woman, untouchable, intimidating.
But even gods fall. Even queens bleed.
And maybe… maybe i already had.
I pressed my forehead to the glass, city lights painting me in fractured reds and whites. My chest rose and fell with uneven rhythm.
For the first time in years, I felt it, that old, familiar sensation clawing its way back.
Not weakness.
Not grief.
What is real, and what is memory? And when the mask cracks, what remains strength, or madness?