Chapter 35: Ghosts That Bleed
The piece of paper in Echo’s hand wasn’t long. It wasn’t dramatic or bloodstained or marked with any obvious clue. Just a torn scrap from what looked like an old journal page, the edges rough, the handwriting jagged and uneven like the words had been scrawled in panic.
“I remember you.”
That was all it said.
Three words.
But the weight of them was like a brick in my gut.
Echo stood in front of me, arms stiff at her sides, her posture tenser than I’d ever seen it. Her eyes, usually so sharp and unreadable, were wide now—confused, unsettled. There was fear in them. Not the kind she showed in battle. Not the kind that made you reach for your weapon.
This was the quiet kind of fear.
The kind that burrowed deep.
“I found it under my door,” she said. Her voice was flat, but her fingers were twitching slightly as she held out the note.
I took it from her and stared at the messy writing again. I didn’t recognize it. But that didn’t mean much. Whoever left it knew how to get close without being seen.
“Was your door locked?” I asked.
She nodded.
“No signs of force?”
“No.”
That meant one thing: whoever slipped this under her door had access. Clearance. Either someone from inside… or someone with help from the inside.
Either way, we had a problem.
\---
Aidan was in the war room when we got there. The screens around him flickered with security feeds, motion logs, and facial scans. He looked up as soon as we entered, and when he saw the look on Echo’s face, he stood.
“What happened?” he asked, coming around the table.
Echo said nothing. She just handed him the paper.
He read it once. Then again. Then handed it to me without a word.
“She’s being watched,” I said quietly. “And they want her to know.”
Aidan leaned against the table, his arms crossed. “It’s bait.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “But it’s also information.”
Ethan arrived a few minutes later, hair sticking up in every direction like he’d been sleeping on a keyboard. Elena trailed after him, sipping coffee from a chipped mug that read “Silver First, Questions Later.”
“What’s the emergency?” Ethan mumbled, rubbing his eyes. Then he froze when he saw Echo.
Echo—who never asked for help.
Echo—who never looked rattled.
“Someone left her a message,” I said, handing over the paper.
Ethan read it once. Then twice. His brow furrowed.
“Creepy,” he muttered. “But why her?”
Echo finally spoke. “Because I think I used to be one of them.”
The room went still.
Even the monitors seemed to pause.
Aidan stepped forward. “You think?”
Echo nodded slowly. “There are… holes in my memory. From before Roxanne found me. Before the lab. I always thought they were just trauma blanks. Things I didn’t want to remember.”
I moved closer. “But now?”
“I think I was put in that lab for a reason,” she said. “Not just because I was a hybrid. But because I was special. Different. Maybe even dangerous.”
Elena sat down heavily in the nearest chair. “Well, that’s comforting.”
Ethan glanced at the paper again. “Do you think this is from someone who knew you before the lab?”
Echo’s lips pressed into a line. “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”
\---
The next few days were a blur of preparation and paranoia.
We increased security.
Started running deeper background checks on every hybrid inside the estate, even the ones we’d already cleared. Patrols were doubled. Access to the armory was restricted. Ethan set up voice recognition traps in the hallways—tiny audio sensors designed to pick up certain key phrases that might connect to Gregory’s sleeper agents.
But nothing triggered.
Nothing moved.
It was like the estate itself was holding its breath.
Echo withdrew.
She spent hours in the records room, going through files, names, even medical logs we’d recovered from the ruined lab. Her hands shook sometimes. But her eyes were steady. Focused.
One night, I found her curled on the floor, papers spread around her like broken wings.
“I remember a hallway,” she whispered. “White walls. Metal doors. I was younger. Smaller. Someone used to read to me through the glass.”
I knelt beside her. “Do you remember who?”
“No,” she said. “But they called me something. Not Echo.”
I waited.
She looked at me, and her voice cracked as she said it.
“They called me Vessel.”
\---
Meanwhile, things between Aidan and me… changed.
We didn’t talk about the kiss.
Not directly.
But it lingered between us in every glance that lasted too long, in every time our hands brushed when we reached for the same file, in the silence we filled with everything but the one thing we both wanted to ask:
What now?
One afternoon, we were walking the perimeter together—checking the new sensors, watching the hybrids in the training yard. He walked quietly beside me, hands in his pockets, his hair tousled by the wind.
“You know,” he said suddenly, “my dad once told me the only thing more dangerous than a broken Luna is one who learns to put herself back together.”
I looked at him. “He would know.”
Aidan smiled faintly. “I think you scare him.”
“Good.”
Then, softly, he added, “You scare me, too.”
I paused. “Why?”
“Because you make me want things,” he said. “Things I never thought I could have.”
I didn’t answer.
I just reached for his hand.
And this time, he didn’t let go.
\---
Meanwhile, Elena and Ethan were… whatever they were.
“Stop poking me,” Ethan muttered as Elena jabbed his shoulder during a stakeout shift.
“I’m not poking you,” she said.
“You’re literally poking me.”
“It’s called checking your reflexes.”
“More like testing my patience.”
Elena grinned. “Admit it. You like the attention.”
“I like quiet.”
“Liar.”
He rolled his eyes. “Why do I like you again?”
“You like me because I’m gorgeous, deadly, and smarter than you.”
He sighed. “Sadly, all true.”
And still, neither of them moved away.
\---
The twist came the next night.
We caught someone sneaking out of the west wing.
Not a hybrid.
Not a wolf.
But one of the junior council assistants.
A boy named Milo.
He’d been here less than three months. Quiet. Polite. Helpful.
The perfect spy.
When we searched his quarters, we found a communicator—buried in a false panel in the floorboards. Cracked. Still warm. And next to it: a copy of Echo’s medical file.
He didn’t resist arrest.
He just smiled and said, “He said she’d remember soon.”
When we asked who “he” was, he only said, “The voice that made us.”