3. Wraith
Chapter 3
Wraith
I push back from the desk slowly, standing for the first time in hours.
My legs ache with tension I didn’t notice until I moved. My back cracks, a slow grind that echoes through the warehouse.
Around me, the machines hum—a low, constant vibration. A heartbeat that never goes silent.
My fingers hover over the keyboard for a breath longer.
I should stay.
I haven’t finished building the next target’s profile.
I haven’t set the trace on Voss’s fallback accounts.
There’s still work to do.
Always more war to wage.
This is where I belong?—
Behind the screens.
Watching .
Controlling.
Pulling strings from a distance.
But it’s not enough anymore.
She’s not enough anymore.
Not behind the glass.
I drag in a breath. Slow. Sharp.
It scrapes my throat on the way out.
Then I stand fully.
I don’t want to do this.
I grab my jacket off the hook and shrug it over my hoodie.
Snagged it years ago on my way out of one of my first hits. It was freezing that night, and I was still struggling to feed myself.
Just so happened I was in the market for a free jacket.
It hung off me back then—too big, too heavy—but I liked it.
Grew into it.
Turns out I like it even more now.
I shove the side door open and step into the alley.
The cold finds the gaps instantly, crawling up my sleeves as I yank my hood up, shadowing my face.
The streets reek of wet concrete and stale smoke—the aftermath of a rain that never fully washed the filth away.
The warehouse district is dead at this hour. Broken sidewalks. Fading graffiti. Windows punched out of abandoned factories, jagged and uneven. Potholes yawning in the middle of the street, swallowing runoff from last night’s rain.
It’s home.
Damaged. Abandoned. Forgotten.
Just like me.
She’s not meant for places like this .
She’s not meant for someone like me.
I should turn back.
I should bury this sickness before it spreads deeper. Before it eats whatever’s left of me.
But I don’t.
I move fast—head down, hands shoved in my pockets. Avoid the puddles. Avoid the streetlights. Stay invisible.
I cross into the city proper, cutting through a half-collapsed construction lot.
Chain-link fences sag against rusted poles, warning signs bleached almost white. Somewhere, a pipe hisses, leaking steam into the cold.
A gas station flickers two blocks over. Half the letters are dead.
O EN 24 HO RS.
A man in a battered Eagles jacket leans against the ice machine, smoking, eyes tracking me without moving his head.
I don’t slow down.
Neither does he.
We recognize each other for what we are—people built to survive. Even when the city’s hell bent on killing us.
Two ghosts passing in the night—drifting through the bones of Philly while the sounds of morning grind to life.
Northern Liberties rises in front of me, a neighborhood caught mid-transformation. Old brick row homes suffocating under the shadow of New condos that claw at the skyline, all glass and ambition that no one asked for. A veneer of wealth slapped over old wounds.
Neon signs flicker and die against the polished steel skeletons of half-built high-rises, windows smeared with dust and fingerprints, the protective film hanging in ragged strips.
Rats scatter under a rusted dumpster, disappearing into the maze of alleyways like they know better than to linger.
New money trying to pretend it owns the place while the old city rots beneath it.
It doesn’t fool me.
It never will.
I don’t belong here.
Not in the polished storefronts.
Not in the faux-chic bars or the overpriced boutiques.
And sure as fuck not in the soft, glittering corner of the world she lives in.
None of it touches me.
None of it even feels real.
Except her
I don’t want to step into her world. Into the brightness. Into that fabricated warmth she lives in like it’s real.
But it pulls at me. Like gravity. Like sickness. Like compulsion.
Like I’ve already lost the right to say no.
I keep moving. One step. Then another.
Drawn forward by something older than reason.
Like gravity.
Like compulsion.
Like inevitability.
I tell myself this will fix it.
That once I see her in the flesh—once I’m close enough to breathe her in—once I get this infection out of my system—this infatuation will break.
I’ll feel the disgust. The disappointment .
I’ll see how fake it all is.
How soft.
How wrong she is for me.
And I’ll finally move the fuck on.
Go back and get my revenge.
Go back to the dark—to the shadows.
Go back to being… uninterrupted.
But deep down?
I already know.
It’s too late.
The air drags against me—thick, humid, cold enough to bite but heavy enough to cling. Yet, does nothing to slow my steps.
The kind of damp that settles into your clothes, your bones, and makes the city feel unnatural. Instead of the scent of damp earth and living things—a strange, sharp metallic tang, like copper pennies and cheap costume jewelry permeates.
The city’s shifting. The hour a transition. A fracture. Trading chaos for order, neon for sunrise. It’s never quiet. Never empty—not even at 4:30 AM.
Two teenagers sit on a bus bench, hoods up, shoes tapping restless rhythms against the concrete, eyes darting—waiting for something, or someone, that probably won’t come.
I would know.
I was them.
A homeless man sleeps under the awning of a boarded-up storefront, wrapped in a threadbare blanket, a battered shopping cart chained to his ankle.
I’d been him before, too.
A couple waits on a corner—huddled close, whispering, waiting for the first train. Bleary-eyed. Lost in each other as their ride pulls up.
I’ve never been them.
And then there’s her.
Drifting through the in-between, like she stepped out of a fucking dream. Alone. Untouched. Like no one told her this part of the world doesn’t belong to people like her.
She moves like she doesn’t know what follows her.
Like she doesn’t feel it—the monsters still roaming while the city sleeps. Waiting.
Or that she doesn’t care.
I don’t know which option pisses me off more.
I watch from the shadows—silent steps, low breath, body tuned to the rhythm of the dark. Her silhouette glides under the flickering neon of an all-night diner, casting her in pinks and greens like some kind of enchanted fucking mirage.
A pale yellow ribbon in her hair. A bright pink coat that looks far too soft and not offering an ounce of protection.
I half-expect birds to start singing.
Or some mice to braid her fucking hair.
This world isn’t safe.
Not mine.
Not anyone's.
Not for her.
She should know better.
She should feel me by now. The little hairs on the back of her neck should be on high alert.
But she doesn’t.
So I follow.
Quiet as death.
She doesn’t rush .
Doesn’t glance behind her. Doesn’t look twice at the alley she just passed. Doesn’t weave her keys through her fingers like a weapon the way most women do.
She walks like she has nothing to fear.
Like the world hasn’t earned her paranoia yet.
Her fear.
A cab rolls past, headlights sweeping over her coat—the bright color like a beacon to darkness. A fucking target. A man across the street finishes his cigarette and doesn’t take his eyes off her. Not once.
I see the look on his face.
Predatory.
Like recognizes like.
She doesn’t even notice.
She just keeps walking, humming something light under her breath, the sound barely audible beneath the low growl of the city. Her breath mists in the cold, catching the light, making her look even more ethereal.
She’s lost in thought. Unbothered.
Unaware.
She has no idea how vulnerable she is.
No idea how easy it would be to take her.
My fingers curl at my sides. The need to move—to act—burns hot in my veins.
She’s making it too easy.
Too gentle.
Too trusting.
Too breakable.
Too fucking pure.
And I hate that it’s driving me to obsession.
I hate that she moves like she doesn’t know the rules of the world.
Why isn’t she afraid?
Maybe I should give her something to fear.
Up ahead, two men stumble out of an apartment building.
Drunk. Loud. Laughing like the world owes them everything. Like nothing out here could ever touch them.
They don’t notice her at first—not until one of them sways too far, his body tipping sideways like it forgot which direction was up.
He slams into her.
Hard.
His hand lands on her waist. Fingers digging into the soft curve of her hip as he tries to steady himself?—
Then lower.
Sliding down, clutching her ass like it’s his to hold.
And something inside me coils.
Tight. Vicious. Sharp.
It’s not jealousy.
It can’t be.
It’s not lust.
It’s not.
It’s animalistic.
A feral, bone-deep urge to snap his neck. To rip the hand from his wrist and crush it into pieces. He touched her. He dared.
Any second now, she’ll react.
She’ll shove him off, twist away, snap at him. Something.
But she doesn’t.
She never even stiffened for a second.
She reaches out—steadies him.
No flinch. No fear. No acknowledgment of the hand still gripping her like he’s earned the right.
She just smiles. It’s soft and warm. Childlike.
Like the darkness hasn’t just tried to mark her.
“Are you okay?” she asks. Her voice gentle–concerned even.
No fucking fear.
The man blinks, slow and slack-jawed, before laughing and slurring something near her ear.
I can’t hear him clearly, but I swear to God—he just asked her how much for an hour.
His friend laughs, slaps him on the back, and starts to drag him down the block.
And Lily?
She laughs as she dusts herself off.
Smiling at the two assholes again.
They’re fucking lucky I don’t drag them into the shadows and show them exactly how much their roaming hands cost them.
“Have a good morning,” she says brightly.
Like she didn’t just get assaulted by a stranger in the middle of an empty street.
Like she doesn’t even realize how close she came to disappearing forever.
She could’ve become another missing woman in this goddamn city.
She should’ve shoved him away.
Should’ve done something.
But she didn’t.
And that’s what makes something inside me snap.
My hands flex at my sides .
I’m supposed to be in control.
That’s who I am. That’s who I’ve always been. Who I had to become.
But Lily makes me forget that. Forget who I am.
Because now?
I’m not watching her.
I’m hunting her.
And the worst part is—I know it has nothing to do with want.
I don’t want this.
I want to go home.
I want to forget her name. Her face. Her fucking voice.
I want to erase the shape of her smile from my memory and get back to the vengeance I’ve spent my whole goddamn life chasing.
But I can’t.
Because she’s in my head now. Pulsing through the blood in my veins.
Burrowed deep. Like a virus. Like a compulsion I can’t code away.
And I don’t know if I’ll be able to fight the urge to let my darkness swallow her whole.
I don’t think I want to fight it.
What would it take to blacken her perfect soul?
To crack that innocent light?
To make her shine a little less bright?
To make fear light up her emerald eyes?
I need to know.
And I’ll enjoy every second of finding out.
Because if she’s going to force me to lose control, she’s going to pay the fucking price for it .
I watch as she reaches Thorn & Petal—her little sanctuary of petals and perfume and oblivious fucking sunshine.
She unlocks the door, humming to herself, and disappears inside without a second thought.
Never once checking behind her.
I exhale. Slow. Steady.
Then step out of the shadows.