Chapter 18 The Message Left On Read
Aurora:
Morning drips through my blinds like honey I don’t have time for. It’s too slow, too golden for the reality of 7 AM.
Coffee first, chaos later . . . that’s the rule.
My one non-negotiable anchor in a life held together by schedules and sticky tape.
The twins are drawing on the kitchen table when my phone buzzes.
Lior is meticulously creating a battle scene, complete with explosions, he’s voicing under his breath. Aria is humming, her crayon swirling in abstract purple circles, that same strange, disconnected tune that always makes my teeth ache.
I almost ignore it;
But habit, or perhaps paranoia, wins.
One glance at the screen, and the rest of the room fades. The smell of burnt toast, the scratch of crayons, Lior’s sound effects, all gone.
Unknown Number: I only want to know they’re safe.
My thumb hovers above the message. No name, no photo. Just the kind of words that punch memory straight into your ribs. Not just a vague 'remember when,' but a full-body slam. The smell of damp earth and pine. The tremor in his voice.
I could delete it. I should delete it. Block the number. Pretend it’s a wrong text, a cruel prank.
Yet my pulse jumps, traitor-fast, because a part of me already knows who wrote it.
Levi Kingston.
I haven’t said that name out loud in so long. Not since... Well, since I buried it under coffee stains and unfinished deadlines. I convinced myself that distance could bleach that bond from my blood. The bond that was forged in moonlight one night and broken by the morning.
Apparently not.
The mark on my collarbone tingles faint, almost a whisper. For so long I tried to find the answers. I wanted to know why it hurt so much after listening to the word someone said.
I researched like a journalist, I was good at finding truths. Because the alternate was to let myself by drowned by the agony. So.I burried myself in work. I looked for answers that no one spoke but everytime I tried, it was always a dead end. blocked by either legal jargon or labelled as myths.
All I needed was the truth from him.
“Mom, can we have pancakes tomorrow?”
Lior’s voice cuts through the fog.
“Tomorrow?” I manage. “Sure, baby.”
He grins, mouth full of cereal. Aria hums that strange tune again, the one that always prickles behind my eyes.
Normal. Ordinary. Fragile.
I lock the phone and shove it face-down on the counter like it bit me.
By noon, I’ve convinced myself the message was a prank or maybe a misdial.
Except the words keep replaying in my head: I only want to know they’re safe.
Safe from what? From him? From the world he dragged me into for a single night and then tore apart with a sentence I still hear in dreams?
“I reject you, Aurora Anderson, as my chosen mate by the Moon Goddess.”
I shake the echo off and dive into work.
The article on charity fraud isn’t due until next week, but typing helps.
The rhythm of keys becomes armor.
Until the editor’s voice snaps through the phone.
“Rora, you alive over there?”
“Barely.”
“Good. Keep it that way. We need your notes for the Michelsen feature. I’ll send the file.”
The Senator again. Every road in this city seems to lead back to that man.
When the kids nap, I sit on the balcony with a mug gone cold. Rain beads along the railing. The air smells of petrichor and… something else.
Smoke.
Always smoke.
I check the street below. Nothing but glistening asphalt.
Still, I whisper to the air, “If you’re watching me, stop.”
No reply, only the slow roll of thunder.
Afternoon drags.
Maggie calls mid-deadline just to complain about her latest photoshoot disaster and ends up diagnosing me again.
“You sound off. Migraine? Men? Mystery?”
“All of the above.”
“You need vitamin D. As in Don’t think about it or the easily available, 'Dick'.”
I laugh. “That’s not how vitamins work.”
“Trust me. Works better than therapy.”
When we hang up, I almost feel lighter, until the phone buzzes again.
Same number. No new message, just the ghost of the first one staring back from the notifications bar.
I swipe it away.
By evening, the twins are building blanket forts. Their laughter fills the apartment, drowning out the low hum that’s been crawling along my nerves all day.
Then Aria stops mid-giggle and looks at the window.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
She whispers, “He’s still there.”
My heart clenches. “Who?”
“The man from the rain.”
Lior scoffs. “Aria, ghosts aren’t real.”
She shrugs, eyes distant. “He’s not a ghost. He’s waiting.”
The words hit harder than thunder. I force a smile and pull the curtains shut. “Enough stories. Bedtime soon.”
They protest, but the warmth in the room returns, shaky but intact.
After they’re asleep, I finally pick up the phone again.
The message waits like a living thing.
I open the keyboard, type three words:
They’re fine. Don’t contact me again.
My thumb hovers over send.
Then I see Aria’s face in my mind, small hand against the glass, whispering about someone waiting.
My throat closes.
I delete the reply.
Instead, I write nothing at all.
Because answering would be an invitation. It would make it real.
And if I let him back into our world, even through a screen, the walls I built might not survive the first crack.
It’s past midnight when I finally crawl into bed. Rain taps the window like knuckles. I close my eyes and try not to think about him.
But just before sleep drags me under, the mark below my collarbone warms again, a pulse synced to something not my own.
Outside, somewhere in the dark city, I can almost feel him watching.
And though I’ll never admit it. But another part... a smaller, treacherous, and long-buried part... feels safer knowing he’s there.
Safer... because if the world I ran from ever found me, he is the only thing strong enough to stand between it and my children.
And that... that is the most terrifying thought of all.