8. Evangeline
8
EVANGELINE
MILITARY CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT Subject: Alexander Cross Status: REDACTED Special Skills: Psychological manipulation, advanced combat training
Note: Subject discharged after concerning incident with trainee. Shows exceptional ability to identify and exploit potential in unstable recruits.
WARNING: Approach with extreme caution. Known to create loyal assets through questionable methods.
“The bayou remembers, child. Every drop of blood, every whispered prayer, every secret buried in its waters. When you need sanctuary, let it hide you in its shadows. But remember—even shadows have memories.”
— Adeline Deveraux
Dawn creeps through the cypress trees, painting the bayou in shades of gold and shadow. Grandmother’s house stands like a sentinel among the ancient trees, its weathered boards holding secrets as old as New Orleans itself. After Jazz got the warning about the hit, this was the only safe place I could think of.
The scent of herbs drying in the rafters mingles with morning mist — rosemary for protection, cedar for cleansing, and deadlier things that Grandmother only harvests under the dark moon. Jazz sleeps on the old sofa, his usual smooth grace softened by exhaustion. We’d arrived just before sunrise, after hours of careful misdirection to ensure we weren’t followed.
My phone buzzes on Grandmother’s scarred wooden table, a cryptic text lighting up the screen:
Unknown: The past never stays buried, little shadow. Are you ready to dance again?
My blood runs cold. Only one person has ever called me that. Alex.
Standing in this kitchen where I first learned about power and protection, where Grandmother taught me that every plant could heal or harm depending on the hand that wielded it, I’m suddenly thrown back in time. The world dissolves, and I’m back in these same swamps, nine years younger and a lifetime more naive…
“Faster, little shadow!” Alex’s voice cuts through the humid air like a whip. “Your enemies won’t wait for you to catch your breath!”
I push my burning muscles harder, leaping over fallen logs and ducking under low-hanging branches. The murky water of the bayou laps at my ankles, threatening to pull me under with each step. My lungs burn, but not as much as the hole in my heart where Celeste used to be.
Five years ago. Had it only been a year ago? The memory of finding her, of cradling her broken body in these very waters, is still fresh enough to make me bleed.
“Good,” Alex says as I collapse at his feet, gasping for air. “Now get up. We’re not done yet.”
I look up at him, this man who found me when I was nothing but a shell of grief and rage. I’d been trying to assume Celeste’s identity on my own, fumbling through forged documents and practiced signatures. But Alex? He saw something in my desperate attempt to become my sister’s ghost. Something he could shape. Something he could use.
“What’s next?” I ask, hating the eagerness in my voice, but hating my weakness more. Celeste would have been stronger. Celeste wouldn’t have frozen when she saw danger coming.
Alex’s smile is sharp as a knife’s edge. “Now, my dear, you learn to kill.”
The words should horrify me. The sixteen-year-old girl I was a year ago would have recoiled. But that girl died the night she found her sister’s body, when she made the choice to step into her sister’s life rather than face her own broken one.
“I’m ready,” I say, and I mean it. The grief that’s been choking me since Celeste’s death crystallizes into something harder, something useful. Alex sees it happen—the transformation written in my eyes—and his smile widens.
“There she is,” he murmurs, almost tenderly. “There’s my perfect little shadow.”
The scene shifts, fragments of memories flashing by in a dizzying blur. Alex teaching me to mix poisons from seemingly harmless plants, his methods so different from Grandmother’s gentle lessons about healing. The weight of a gun in my hand, the kickback jarring my bones as I fire again and again at human-shaped targets. The sickening crunch of bones breaking beneath my fists.
Each lesson is a step further from Sarah, a step closer to becoming the ghost of Celeste. But not really Celeste — she was too bright, too pure for this darkness. I’m becoming something else entirely. A shadow of a shadow, a ghost of a ghost.
“Remember, Sarah,” Alex’s voice echoes in my mind, using my real name like a weapon, a reminder of who I’m choosing not to be, “in this world, it’s kill or be killed. Hesitation means death.”
Just like it meant death for Celeste. Sweet, strong Celeste who never saw the darkness coming until it was too late.
I throw myself into the training with a fervor that sometimes startles even Alex. Every bruise, every ache, every drop of blood is an offering to my sister’s memory. I’ll become whatever I need to be—weapon, ghost, shadow—if it means getting justice for her.
But in quiet moments, in the dark of night when even Alex’s voice can’t reach me, I wonder what Celeste would think of what I’m becoming. Would she recognize the sister she loved in this creature of shadow and vengeance?
The thought haunts me, but not enough to stop. Nothing will stop me now. Not guilt, not fear, not even Celeste’s memory.
A dimly lit warehouse comes into focus, the memory sharp as broken glass. A man bound to a chair, fear etched on his face. Alex standing behind me, his presence a constant pressure. I’m seventeen now, hardened by a year of training, but my hands still shake.
“Prove your loyalty, little shadow,” he whispers. “Prove you have what it takes to survive in this world.”
The man in the chair pleads, his words a jumbled mess of terror and desperation. “Please, I have a daughter...”
Daughter. The word pierces my armor. I think of Celeste, of all the daughters who’ve lost sisters, all the sisters who’ve lost themselves. I look to Alex, seeking... what? Guidance? Mercy? The father I never had?
“He’s guilty,” Alex says, his voice cold and certain. “A plague on this city. Removing him is an act of justice.” His hand squeezes my shoulder, and I lean into the touch despite myself. “Remember what they did to your sister, Sarah. Remember why we’re here.”
The garrote feels heavy in my hands, the wire catching the dim light like a lover’s promise. One quick motion, just like Alex taught me. The man’s eyes widen in shock, and for a moment, they’re Celeste’s eyes, full of confusion and betrayal. His fingers claw uselessly at his throat as the life drains from him.
I vomit afterward, hiding my weakness in a dark corner of the warehouse. But Alex’s pride is palpable, his approval a drug more potent than any chemical he’s taught me to use. “Well done, Sarah,” he says, using my real name like a reward. “You’re ready now.”
That night, I dream of Celeste. We’re children again, playing in the bayou, our laughter echoing across the water. But when she turns to me, her eyes are empty, her throat bearing the mark of wire.
“What have you become, little sister?” she asks, but her voice is Alex’s, smooth and satisfied.
I wake up screaming, sheets tangled around me like Spanish moss. Alex is there—he’s always there now, my mentor, my maker, my monster.
“Hush, little shadow,” he soothes, stroking my hair as I shake apart. “The first one is always the hardest. But you did so well. You’re becoming exactly what you need to be.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, hating how young my voice sounds, how much I still need his approval.
His smile gleams in the darkness. “Beautiful. Deadly. Perfect.” His fingers tighten in my hair, just shy of painful. “My masterpiece.”
I lean into his touch, let him reshape me with praise and pain and purpose. It’s easier than facing the truth—that Sarah died in the bayou with Celeste, and whatever I’m becoming isn’t quite human anymore.
Days blur into weeks into months. Each kill gets easier, each new identity fits more smoothly. Alex molds me like clay, teaching me to be whoever I need to be to get close to a target. Socialite, student, lover—all masks that hide the shadow underneath.
“You’re a natural,” he tells me after I successfully infiltrate a charity gala, my first solo mission. “The way you adapt, the way you become whoever they need you to be... it’s like watching art come to life.”
I preen under his praise, ignoring the voice in my head that sounds like Celeste, begging me to remember who I really am. But who am I, really? Sarah is dead. Celeste is dead. I am only what Alex has made me—a shadow that wears faces like masks, a ghost that deals in death.
The training continues, each lesson taking me further from the girl I was. Alex teaches me about poisons, about seduction, about the million ways to make death look natural. I learn to move like smoke, to smile like sunshine, to kill like winter—cold and inevitable.
And through it all, I tell myself it’s for Celeste. For justice. For vengeance.
But in my darkest moments, when even Alex’s approval can’t warm the void inside me, I wonder if I’ve become exactly what killed my sister—another monster in a city full of shadows.
The memory fractures, splintering into a thousand sharp-edged pieces as my phone buzzes again. Still in Grandmother’s kitchen, but the past clings to me like swamp mud.
Alex : You’ve learned to wear her face well, little shadow. But can you wear her death?
My hands shake as I set the phone down. Jazz stirs on the sofa, his musician’s intuition probably sensing my distress even in sleep. Five years ago, I would have hidden that tremor, would have earned one of Alex’s cutting remarks about weakness.
“Even shadows bleed, child.” Grandmother’s voice echoes in my memory, a counterpoint to Alex’s lessons. “The trick isn’t not feeling—it’s choosing what to do with those feelings.”
I move to Grandmother’s herb wall, fingers brushing dried plants that hold both healing and harm. Alex taught me to kill with these same plants, but Grandmother had taught me their true nature first. How had I forgotten that lesson? That everything in nature has both light and shadow, and the choice of which to use lies in the wielder’s heart.
“You’re thinking too loud, Melody,” Jazz’s voice, rough with sleep, cuts through my spiral. He hasn’t moved from the sofa, giving me space while letting me know I’m not alone. So different from Alex’s constant hovering, his suffocating presence.
I think of Lucas too, probably in his lab right now, channeling his brilliant madness into keeping me safe. His chaos is nothing like Alex’s calculated cruelty, though both burn with similar intensity.
My phone buzzes one final time.
Alex : Time to come home, little shadow. Your sister is waiting.
The words should terrify me. Instead, something crystallizes in my chest—hard and sharp and certain. Alex might have taught me to be a shadow, but he never understood what that really meant. Shadows aren’t just darkness; they’re proof of light.
I am not the same broken girl he found in the bayou. I’m not just his weapon anymore. I’m somebody’s Melody, somebody’s Chimera, and my own damn self besides.
“Well,” I whisper to the ghosts of who I used to be, “let’s show him how shadows dance.”