Chapter 25 · The Voice in the Back Room

Leah's blade is already out.

She doesn't remember drawing it. One second her hand was empty, the next the death blade's in her grip, black metal humming, eager. The ghost in the corner doesn't move. Just stands there, half-transparent, one hand resting on her belly.

"Don't." Aiden's voice is rough. He steps between them. "Leah, wait—"

"Get out of my way." Her voice shakes. The blade's point doesn't.

The ghost tilts her head. Soft brown hair falls across her shoulder. "You were always so quick to anger, little bird."

Leah's chest locks up. Little bird. Nobody calls her that. Nobody's called her that since—

"Mom?"

The word comes out broken. The blade dips an inch. Just an inch.

The ghost smiles. Sad and gentle and wrong, because ghosts don't smile like that. Ghosts are echoes. Loops. They repeat their last moments, their worst moments, over and over. They don't recognize you. They don't use nicknames from when you were six years old and afraid of thunderstorms.

"I'm sorry," the ghost says. Elena Vaughn. Her mother. Dead for twenty-three years. "I didn't want you to see me like this."

Leah's hand is shaking now.