When the Darkness Calls Her (The Fate of Her #2)

1. Wraith

Chapter 1

Wraith

T he monitors flicker.

Soft blue light pulses across the industrial interior, shadows shifting like ghosts across the concrete floor of my renovated warehouse. On the outside, it looks abandoned—windows cracked, doors chained, the kind of place the city forgot. Even the main level is buried in a curated mess of rusted tools and shattered crates, a graveyard of debris collected over decades.

The illusion is deliberate. People don’t look too closely when a building looks like it might collapse under its own history. And for years, it’s worked.

Occasionally, people—mostly teenagers—break in with their flashlights sweeping across dust and rot. looking for a quick thrill in the forgotten part of the city. But no one’s ever made it past the illusion. No one’s found the hidden staircase.

No one’s seen what waits above.

And that’s exactly how I want it .

It’s not much. A bedroom. A bathroom. A kitchen. Things that pass for normal.

But the center of the space? That’s harder to explain.

Dozens of screens glow with shifting code and frozen frames. Surveillance feeds. Target dossiers. And her.

I should be working. Should be tracking Voss, breaking apart his communication webs, bleeding his empire dry—one encrypted file at a time. That’s what I built this place for. That’s what I promised myself I’d do.

But my eyes keep drifting.

Back to her.

She shouldn’t be on even one of my screens—let alone most of them. But there she is. Again.

Third time this week.

She moves through her life without fear, as if she’s never known true terror. As if the world was built in a bubble just for her—bright, weightless, disgustingly soft.

She doesn’t check her surroundings the way most women do. Doesn’t flinch at shadows. Doesn’t carry keys laced between her fingers. No pepper spray. No urgency.

Like she’s never even imagined what could be lurking behind her.

Every step is a declaration of invincibility.

Like nothing’s hunting her.

Like nothing ever could.

Her bold defiance is a personal challenge to me. A dare.

It’s almost funny. The city around her is a rotting cesspool—sirens screaming in the distance, blood slicking the gutters, monsters hiding in glass towers. While she floats through the horrors of Philly like it’s a fucking fairytale, all sugar and sunlight .

I lean in. The screen catches the corner of her smile as she exits her building—one of those mid-tier apartment complexes in Northern Liberties with a busted lock and a maintenance guy who ghosts every call.

The illusion of safety.

It’s still dark. Streets slick from last night’s rain. Wind sharp enough to slice skin—but she’s not even wearing gloves. As if she’s not some delicate fucking flower.

No. Worse.

A goddamn Disney princess.

Wouldn’t shock me if a flock of animals showed up to serenade her while birds braided her warm chestnut hair and mice organized her schedule.

All that softness, parading through a city built to devour her.

My jaw ticks.

She rounds the corner, and I switch angles—traffic cam reroute, clean and fast. She doesn’t know I’m watching. No one ever does.

But with her? It feels offensive. The way she moves through the world without caution. Without calculation.

A willful ignorance.

She’s not just out of place.

She’s a siren. Calling to every shadow in me. Begging to be corrupted.

The light that emanates from her taunts me, pleading to be snuffed out.

And it would be so fucking easy.

No one this soft survives long in my world.

Not unless they’re protected by something more dangerous than the monsters trying to tear them apart .

And she’s not.

Not yet.

I should close out of the camera feeds. Stop tracking her every step. Focus on my next moves. Voss has been too quiet lately—he’s planning something. Something big. Something I intended to ruin.

That’s the mission.

That’s what I should care about.

Not some angel with bright green eyes and a smile untouched by pain.

My fingers twitch with the urge to drag screams from her too-soft lips. Agonized, broken, real.

I need to forget her. To stop watching. Stop obsessing.

But I don’t look away.

Not yet.

The camera finds her again—like it has a thousand times before.

And still, it’s not enough.

She’s headed toward Thorn & Petal—that little flower shop wedged between a payday loan joint and a liquor store.

Wrong part of the city for fairy tales.

Wrong part for her.

This place doesn’t deserve her. None of it does.

She’s pure. Untouched. And it pisses me off.

There she goes again—moving through dark, wet streets like danger doesn’t breathe from every alleyway.

Like every step doesn’t drag her closer to something hungry.

She doesn’t look back.

Not once .

No matter who crosses her path, no matter what she sees—she never hesitates.

And her smile never falters.

She doesn’t veer away from obvious danger.

She just walks.

Like she’s daring the shadows to hunt her.

Like no one’s watching.

Like no one’s waiting in them.

But I am.

Her coat flutters in the wind—cheap, bright pink fabric catching the first blush of dawn like spider silk.

She has no idea how much that color makes her stand out.

No clue how many eyes follow a girl like her—soft-angled, too bright for pavement this stained.

She doesn’t belong here. Doesn’t belong anywhere near the filth I swim through every night.

Maybe that’s what keeps me watching.

I want to see her perfect little bubble burst.

I want the city’s rot to stain her clean.

She stops at that café on 6th. Small. Independent. Smells like burnt beans and cinnamon syrup.

She orders something warm—something with foam and sprinkles and a name too long to be real.

The barista fucks it up. Wrong milk. Wrong size.

She smiles anyway. Says it’s fine. Says thank you. Like she means it.

Like it doesn’t happen every fucking time she comes here.

Who does that?

Then someone slams into her—shoulders her hard while grabbing napkins from the counter. Doesn’t even look back. Doesn’t check if the coffee burning her skin is drawing tears.

And she apologizes.

Like she’s the one who did something wrong.

She always fucking does.

And then—like the world hasn’t taken enough from her already—she steps outside and helps an old woman with her bags.

Stoop-shouldered. Wrinkled. Moving slow.

The girl doesn’t rush her. Doesn’t check the time. Just smiles, nods, carries everything to the woman’s car, clutched in her burnt-red hands like she’s got all the time in the world.

She’s not real.

She can’t be.

Has to be a setup. Bait. A trap wrapped in lace and green eyes, strung with sweetness meant to lure in monsters like me.

Or maybe…

Maybe she was created for me.

The thought makes my fingers twitch.

Not to reach out. Not to gently caress that perfect, untouched skin.

Not to hold her carefully and protect every delicate petal.

No.

I want to ruin her softness with my bare hands.

No.

It’s deeper than that. Primal.

A need to wrap my fingers around her thin neck and see how hard I have to squeeze before fear sparks behind those bright green eyes.

I tell myself to change the feed.

Again.

To check on Voss .

Again.

To monitor the lab.

Again.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

I keep watching—locked in place, unable to tear my gaze away.

Because whatever she is… she’s not safe.

Not in this city.

Not with eyes like that.

And definitely not with me.

At least not for long.

She shouldn’t even be on my radar.

She’s not on the list. Not in the files. Not tied to the networks I’ve been peeling back—layer by layer—to fulfill my own personal vendetta.

She’s nothing like the corrupt bastards that usually earn my fixation.

No deep connections.

No dark agenda.

No blood on her hands.

No.

She’s a fucking florist.

A girl who sells lilies and violets to rich women who forget her name before they even hit the door—if they bothered to ask in the first place.

She shouldn’t be on my screen.

Not next to the worst nightmares to walk this earth.

Not tonight.

Not any night.

Not ever again.

I drag my focus back to the data feed I’ve been decrypting for far too long—Dr. Voss’s security rotations, digital blind spots, deep-route financial reroutes, his movements, his associates.

All the usual things to track when you’re hunting a government-sanctioned terrorist.

And yet, my eyes keep flicking back.

And there she is—a walking ray of sunshine amidst the darkness.

A ribbon in her hair. A cup of something warm cradled in her hands. Smiling at the man who holds the door for her like it’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever done.

I hate him for it—for stealing her attention.

I might want to see her cry, might want to watch the light break in her eyes…

But that doesn’t mean anyone else gets to own her smile.

The world’s only ever been kind to her.

And I can’t stop wondering what that feels like.

She doesn’t belong in the games I play.

She’s not a player yet.

But she will be.

Again, I tell myself to look away. Shut down the feed. Refocus. There’s real work to do—real targets. Real monsters.

I should leave the angel untouched. Let her light keep shining.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

Because I want to ruin her. To see what’s underneath that perfect smile. To strip the innocence until there’s nothing left but raw, aching truth.

Not out of cruelty .

Well… not entirely.

Mostly?

Mostly out of curiosity.

How does something that soft and pure survive in a world like this?

How does someone like her still exist?

She shouldn’t.

She moves like a fairy—drifting through the city, sprinkling her pixie dust, making everything around her feel enchanted. People part for her on crowded sidewalks without realizing it, like even they know she’s not meant for this place.

Her smile softens them.

The world bends to protect her.

Like life has never dared to mark her.

And that’s what gets to me.

That she doesn’t know what life really is.

That she lives in some beautiful, perfect little lie.

A lie where monsters like me don’t exist.

But I do.

And I’m watching.

And worse—she didn’t recognize me as one, even when I stood right in front of her.

My grip tightens on the edge of the desk.

I squeeze my eyes shut, tell myself again to turn the fucking screen off. Refocus. Finish the profile for the next target.

But I don’t.

I lean forward instead.

Elbows on knees. Eyes locked on the flickering feed.

Watching her—not as a distant observer.

No.

That part’s over.

Her light has blinded me. Entranced me. Marked me.

I’m not outside this anymore.

I’ve become something else.

Something worse.

Something darker.

Something she could never be prepared for.

I’m not Prince Charming. I’m not a knight in fucking shining armor.

I don’t want to save her from the darkness circling like sharks scenting fresh blood.

I want to pull her under. Drown her in the waters of my wickedness. Crack her open and see if she’s just as shiny on the inside as she is on the outside.

I want my hands to bring her pain. I want to be the reason her cheeks are streaked with tears.

The reason her eyes go wide with fear.

Because fairytales always have a monster.

And she just found hers.