2. Wraith
Chapter 2
Wraith
“ F uck. Get your shit together,” I mutter, catching my eyes drifting to the looping videos and images of her.
She’s like a drug.
One I can’t stop coming back to.
One designed just for me.
I shove the incessant thoughts of her down—hard—cramming them into the corner of my mind where they belong.
Where they should stay.
But they don’t.
They never do.
She’s a distraction. One I can’t afford.
Not tonight.
Not now.
Voss first.
Slay the beast.
Then I can have the beauty.
I dig my nails into my palm, grounding myself. Focus, motherfucker.
I drag my focus back to the monitors, scanning through everything one last time—making sure the destruction will be complete. I’ve been planning this hit for a long time. But I’ve been imagining his death far longer.
He took everything.
My childhood.
My life.
My future.
Everything good in my life.
Buried it under tombstones, government grants, and polished lies.
Signing fucking death certificates with a smile and a handshake.
Made me disappear, a ghost before I even had the chance to fight back. Before I even had a chance to choose my own path in life.
He took it all.
The cursor blinks.
And tonight, I return the favor.
One keystroke, and the last decade of Gideon Voss’s research collapses. It’s the kind of shit that shouldn’t exist at all.
The lab sprawls across my monitors—clinical white halls, reinforced doors, cameras tucked into corners.
Everything looks perfectly sterile on the surface.
But take one glimpse underneath and you’ll see nothing but rot and decay.
Movement at a side entrance catches my attention .
I mark the timestamp. Thirty seconds faster than projected.
Good.
They slip through the door.
Clean entry.
No alarms.
The way it should be. No mistakes. No surprises.
I shift back in the chair, fingers hovering over the keys. The warehouse around me hums—a low, constant vibration of fans and machines pulling stale air through the dark.
I drag my glasses off, pinch the bridge of my nose, then scrub a hand down my face.
The sharp sting of my palm against my days-old stubble does nothing to clear the fog.
Fuck. How long has it been since I stepped away from the grid? Breathed in the not so fresh air of the city?
Two… three days?
I need to get some fucking sleep.
Later.
I slide my glasses back on, stretch out my fingers–enjoying the release of my joints as they crackle.
I’ve spent weeks digging into both the digital foundations and physical layout of this place. Mapping every blind spot. Seeking out every crack in their firewalls. Finding the perfect backdoor into their system for Beckett and his crew.
I hate owing anything to anyone, let alone a favor with no limitations. But I needed this to all go down at the same time, and I can’t be in two places at once.
On the neighboring screens, the guys move through the building—dark figures sliding through the bright white halls—silent, invisible .
Their job is physical.
Mine is to make sure there’s nothing left to salvage.
Another camera feed flickers: the skeleton crew of security guards rotating through their schedules like clockwork. Scientists in white coats moving down sterile hallways, clipboards in hand, chatting animatedly with each other, unaware of the monster they call a colleague.
I wonder what they would do if they knew what they were really helping with?
One click and it all comes down.
They don’t know what’s coming.
They never do.
I tap the command key once.
The virus wakes up.
The screens ripple with movement as the first firewall shudders and drops.
Behind it, Voss’s system scrambles—a life's worth of research spinning into panic. Encrypted files lock down. Firewalls reroute. Dead-end security loops churn and restart, desperate to hold the infection back.
It’s pathetic.
A low laugh rumbles out of me, sharp and dark.
After all the money Voss has been thrown to keep his dirty little bioterrorism secret—this is what he calls cyberprotection?
I almost feel insulted.
It’s been a long time since anyone made me work for it. And now?
Watching as his life's work crumbles under the weight of its own arrogance?
It’s almost boring .
At least it's still satisfying.
The hallway feed picks up Beckett’s hand signal—stop, scan.
They breach the inner corridor.
They clear the small lab offshoots, moving toward the final door at the end of the hall.
Voss’s office.
I catch the gleam of a scanner flashing over the door lock.
Then they vanish from view.
I lean back, fingers resting lightly on the keyboard, eyes locked back on the digital holocaust I created just for Voss.
File after file flashes across the screens—blueprints, chemical schematics, tactical maps, experiment logs. Each one flickers once, tries to lock itself down, and then implodes—scrambled into digital ash.
The virus digs deeper.
Root structures collapse in real time, like bones snapping under a slow, precise pressure. Offsite backups try to light up, try to initiate recovery protocols—but they’re already infected. Already bleeding its digital lifeforce, hemorrhaging code.
Voss planned for sabotage.
He planned for corporate espionage.
He didn’t plan for me.
Not that he could’ve.
My eyes cut back to the camera on Voss’s office door.
Three minutes.
Should’ve been long enough.
Grab the files.
Get out.
What the fuck are they doing in there ?
I clench my teeth and force myself to look away.
One by one, the building blocks of his empire disintegrate.
The monitor splits into smaller windows as the virus fractures the network—multiple attacks blooming at once. Rerouted power systems, database access points, hidden servers tucked into deep-net corners.
No branch of his operation untouched. No failsafe left unburned.
A program flags an emergency lockdown attempt.
I tilt my head, watching the system struggle as it desperately tries to follow the command it’s been given.
Useless.
My jaw ticks.
Fine.
One quick check.
I yank up the hidden tunnel I slipped into their gear—the backdoor buried inside the specs I gave them.
A few keystrokes and their body cam feeds split across the lower corner of the monitor.
They flip through folders.
Search every drawer and cabinet.
Thorough.
Competent.
I exhale through my nose, slow.
They’ve got it.
The emergency measures are caught in a recursive loop, turning on themselves faster than the virus can even chew them.
Another laugh builds low in my chest, but I bite it back.
No point mocking a corpse .
Instead, I let the silence stretch. Let the cold satisfaction seep into my bones.
This is what you deserve, you fucking coward.
The first set of research notes on viral weapons go up in flames—line after line of encrypted data twisted into nothingness.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Chemical signatures. Target distribution maps. Mass casualty simulations.
All gone.
I clench my jaw when images start flashing in a grotesque slideshow of the remains of test subjects.
Fuck.
Sick bastard.
The systems flicker under the weight of their own collapse. Interrupting anything connected to it.
The feeds from the lab’s cameras shudder, static creeping into the edges of the screens like black mold.
Perfect timing.
I watch as the guys exit the building, carrying surprisingly little out with them.
They better have fucking gotten it all.
Researchers jump up suddenly and back away from monitors, faces panicked, unsure how to handle the disintegration of their entire system.
Sucks to suck.
The digital control center that held the lab together—the schedules, the research, the communications—is ancient history .
The virus spreads outward, climbing into the external servers, branching into cloud redundancies.
It’s almost beautiful.
Total system failure in 3… 2… 1.
The monitors flash once—then black out.
No alarms. No lockdowns. No warnings.
Just silence.
I exhale slowly, dragging my gaze across the dead screens.
It’s done.
Voss’s lab is nothing but a mausoleum now—polished, white, and hollow.
Exactly how it should be.
I want to celebrate. Fuck, I deserve to celebrate.
But I know Voss, and he's a god-damn cockroach. This would take anyone else out of the game, yet this fucker seems to have unlimited resources.
I sit there a minute longer, staring at the black screens—the proof of my success—letting the hum of the technology surrounding me be my cry of victory.
I should leave the rig for a few hours.
Step outside. Touch some fucking grass.
Clear my head.
Fuck. Maybe get the sleep my body’s been screaming for.
I should do any of these things.
I don’t.
Instead, my gaze drifts sideways—mindless, automatic—to the other feed still running.
Her feed.
Traffic cam picks her up two blocks from home .
She’s walking alone.
Again.
I’m already bracing for the stupid shit she’s doing this time when she slows?—
Handing something to the man slumped against the brick wall.
A small brown paper bag–a meal.
Homemade, no doubt.
He smiles up at her.
His gaze knowing. Familiar.
Their body language comfortable.
Like this isn’t the first time.
My fingers flex against the edge of the desk.
Stupid girl.
Talking to strange men and walking dark streets alone.
Bleeding sweetness into a city that devours kindness like it’s the main dish.
My chest tightens?—
A flicker jerks the corner of my vision.
My breath locks.
And immediately releases.
Just the monitor.
A line flickers down the screen—a death rattle.
I hate that for a split second, I let myself hope.
That program’s been running for over a decade.
Scanning. Searching.
Never finding what it’s looking for.
Doubt it ever will.
But killing the scan would feel too much like giving up.
I made a promise once.
Doesn’t matter that everything after ripped control out of my hands .
I should’ve held on tighter. That’s what a hero would’ve done.
But that’s not what I am. I tried. Once. It didn’t work out.
Even so, I don’t break my word.
Not then.
Not now.
Even when the past is all that’s left to remember it.
The echo of a person.
A ghost.
A wraith.
Just like me.
My eyes flick back to her screen.
The movement involuntary. Unwanted.
This lack of control makes me wonder?—
Am I the one haunting her?—
Or is she haunting me?