Chapter 20 The Reporter And The Threat
Aurora:
The newsroom smells like burnt coffee and deadlines.
Phones ring. Printers spit out newsprint. Warren’s voice cuts through the chaos, barking about budget cuts and headlines that “bleed enough to sell.”
It’s comforting, in its own twisted way, the one place where logic still beats magic, where ink still trumps blood.
I’ve always loved this place, even when it’s suffocating, even when the ghosts of what I left behind follow me through the glass doors.
Today, they feel closer.
My screen flashes another email notification.
Subject: Stop digging.
I almost laugh. “Original,” I mutter under my breath.
It’s the third one this week. The same patterns: No sender, no traceable metadata.
Just another voice in the void telling me to be afraid. But they don't know me.
I never back down from a challenge, especially a threat.
Warren leans over my cubicle wall. “You talking to yourself again, Rora?”
“Part of my charm.”
He eyes the half-eaten muffin on my desk. “That muffin looks older than my career. You planning to finish it or use it as a weapon?”
I smile because sarcasm is easier than explaining why I’ve been staring at the same paragraph for thirty minutes.
He lowers his voice. “You good?”
“Define good.”
He sighs. “You’ve been… off. I can’t have my best reporter losing her edge. You want a lighter piece? Something fluffy? Maybe that downtown pet adoption story?”
“I don’t do fluff.”
“That’s the problem.”
I push back from the desk. “What’s the real reason, Warren? You reassign me, you check in daily, you hover like a parent on the first day of kindergarten. Why?”
He hesitates. Then, “Because someone’s been asking about you.”
My pulse stutters. “Who?”
“Don’t know. Calls come in after hours. Male voice. Calm. Said he was a family friend.”
The world narrows for a second.
“Did he leave a name?”
Warren shakes his head. “I told him you were out. He said to tell you the ‘kids look happy.’”
The mug slips from my hand, shattering against the floor. Coffee spills across my notes, ink bleeding like veins.
Warren curses, rushing for paper towels. “Jesus, Aurora, you okay?”
I force a breath. “Yeah. Just, burned my hand.”
Lie. The heat is inside, not on my skin.
He crouches to help. “Take the day if you need it. Seriously.”
“No.” My voice comes out sharper than intended. “I’m fine.”
He studies me a beat longer, but years of knowing when not to push finally win. “Alright. Just don’t ghost on me like last time.”
I manage a smile. “Promise.”
When he walks away, I wipe the coffee with shaking hands. My phone buzzes.
Unknown Number: Seen the news today? Be careful what you chase.
I delete it before my brain can process the words.
By the time I leave the building, the rain has started again, thin, cold, insistent. It turns the city into a blur of reflected lights.
I pull my coat tighter, check my reflection in a shop window. The woman staring back looks tired but alive. That should count for something.
I start walking faster. I need to get home, see the twins, remind myself what’s real.
But halfway down the block, I swear I hear footsteps behind me.
I glance back. Empty sidewalk. Just my shadow and the rhythm of rain.
“Paranoid,” I mutter. “You’re officially paranoid.”
Except the mark beneath my collarbone burns again.... a pulse, sharp, quick, gone.
By the time I reach the apartment, Maggie calls, her voice is already echoing through the hallway.
She’s on speaker, halfway through a monologue about her disastrous photoshoot.
“....and then the model sneezed mid-pose, right into the glitter fog! I swear, I’m cursed. Anyway, how are the gremlins?”
“Exhausted. Which is a blessing.” I slip off my shoes. “And you?”
“Still single, still fabulous. You sound weird. Bad day?”
“Just… work.”
“You say that like work didn’t just send you another love letter from your stalker fan club.”
I freeze. “How’d you...??”
“Warren called me.”
“Of course he did.”
\--
“He’s worried, babe. We all are.”
“I can handle anonymous threats, Mags. Comes with the job.”
“Yeah, but last time you said that, you ended up hiding in your apartment with a baseball bat and expired takeout.”
I laugh, even though it isn’t funny. “That was a cockroach, not a hitman.”
“Same thing, different shoes.”
Her voice softens. “Be careful, okay?”
“I will.”
After we hang up, I turn off every light except the lamp by the couch. The apartment hums quietly around me, familiar and safe, mostly.
I pull out my laptop and open a new file:
PROJECT: VEIL
The name lingers like a warning. I found it buried in the Michelsen archive with references to cross-domain research and bio-spectral resonance, whatever that means. It sounds like pseudoscience, but something about it feels alive. The funding trails twist back to Kingston Enterprises, and that’s what truly unsettles me.
Levi’s company.
Coincidence??? It has to be.
The deeper I dig, the stranger it gets, encrypted reports half-redacted, audio files that cut off mid-sentence, experiment logs where subjects are listed only by lunar dates instead of names. Someone tried to erase this, but the gaps feel deliberate, as if they wanted the silence to speak. Every line feels taunting, that I can't trace the link between the words. I swear I can almost hear breathing.
Still, my stomach twists as I start typing notes.
Somewhere between sentences, the thunder rolls closer. The windowpane rattles, and the light flickers once before steadying.
I look up. The reflection staring back at me isn’t smiling. It isn't kind either.
The rain outside moves strangely, like footsteps I can’t see.
I close the laptop and whisper into the empty room,
“Whoever you are, you can’t scare me.”
But my mark throbs again, soft, rhythmic, a heartbeat belonging to someone else.
And somewhere out in the rain, I know he’s listening.
I jerk the curtains shut, heart pounding.
And for a second, I think I hear it..... a low, familiar voice carried through the storm.
Stay inside.
I tell myself there's no one there.
Just the city
Just rain.
Just ghosts I refuse to believe in....