Chapter 103: Fractures in the Veil
The city pulsed low beneath the window, a soft industrial thrum that crawled up the walls and settled deep in the bones of the building. Aria stood at the edge of it all, one hand resting on the cracked windowsill, her breath fogging the glass in slow, even intervals. The skyline blinked and flickered — half - dead neon signs, scattered comm towers, and the kind of silence that didn't feel like peace, but a warning. She hadn't said much since they got in. She hadn't had to.
Selene leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, watching her in that way she did sometimes — like memorizing her outline just in case it vanished again. Her boots were still caked in dried blood from the last skirmish, but she hadn't bothered cleaning them. Neither had Aria asked. It didn't feel like the kind of night where things needed to be explained. The silence between them had settled into something oddly safe.
"You ever sleep?" Aria asked without turning, voice soft but edged in something brittle.
Selene pushed off the wall, slow and deliberate. "When I'm dead."
The joke didn't land like it usually did. Aria's expression didn't shift, but Selene saw it — the way her shoulders pulled in slightly, tension spidering down her spine.
"This place is wrong," Aria said after a beat. "It doesn't feel abandoned. It feels like it's waiting."
Selene's breath caught in her throat. "Places don't wait, Aria. People do."
"No," she murmured, eyes still on the city. "Some places remember. They hold onto things. You feel that too, right?"
Selene didn't answer. She moved to the couch instead, sitting on the edge with her fingers loosely laced. The leather creaked under her weight, but Aria didn't look back. She kept staring into the dark like it might tell her something.
She wasn't wrong.
This building did remember.
Selene had chosen it carefully — not just for the old generator she could wire into, not for the aging surveillance feeds she'd quietly tapped into — but because of what had happened here. Two years ago, before the world fell apart in flames and disease and rot. Before Aria's death carved itself into Selene's chest like a brand. She remembered this exact view. The way the fog rolled through the Mid - Rise. The gunfire that echoed just before dawn. The look on Aria's face when she stepped into the fire without a second thought.
Selene had lived it all.
And she'd buried her with her own hands.
But something — someone — had dragged her back. Had reset the board. Given her two years. Two years to change it. To save her. To do it right.
Now they were here again. And Aria was starting to feel the cracks. Just like before.
"You're feeling it more now," Selene said finally. "Aren't you?"
Aria's reflection in the glass blinked slowly. "Feeling what?"
Selene's fingers tightened together. She didn't say it. Couldn't say it. If she told Aria what really happened, what she used to be, how she died in her arms and smiled through a mouthful of blood — it would break her. Again. So she swallowed it all.
"I just meant the city. The energy's off. Something's building. You feel that?"
Aria nodded slightly. "Yeah. It's like… like the city's exhaling after holding its breath too long. Like something's coming back."
Selene moved beside her, eyes tracking the fog slinking across the rooftops. "What do you feel when you get near the center?"
Aria hesitated. "Like I've been there before."
That pulled Selene's focus sharply. "You have." Her voice cracked around it before she reeled herself in. "Or… maybe it's just déjà vu."
Aria turned to her, frowning. "No. It's more than that. I don't know how I know, but it's like I left something there."
Selene's throat tightened. The blood, the broken glass, the look in her eyes when she said Don't let them die for nothing. It wasn't déjà vu. It was a ghost. Selene wanted to grab her then, anchor her to the ground and keep her away from the center forever.
Instead, she softened. "We'll stay away from it. Just for now. It's not safe."
"You always say that," Aria murmured. "But nothing's ever safe. You just choose where to bleed."
Selene studied her. The weight she carried. The questions she wasn't voicing. The instincts that hadn't caught up to memory yet.
"You think I'm hiding something from you," Selene said.
Aria finally turned to face her. "Aren't you?"
They stood there in the low light, nothing but soft breathing and distant thunder between them.
"I'm trying to protect you," Selene said quietly. "That's all."
"I don't need protecting."
"I know. But I do."
That made Aria blink.
Selene stepped forward, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. Her fingertips were cool, gentle. "That's why I keep moving. Why I keep you away from the fire."
Aria didn't step back. "What if I am the fire?"
Selene's lips twitched. "Then I'll burn."
The air shifted. Heavy, charged. Aria looked like she was going to say something, but then just let it go. She turned back to the window and exhaled.
By morning, the clouds had thickened, soaking the streets in a steady, dull rain. They didn't talk much. Selene spent most of the day recalibrating the motion sensors she'd buried in the alley two blocks down. Aria tried to cook. Something involving canned rice and a powdered broth mix that tasted like wet cement but still managed to be hot, and for that alone it was a win.
She placed two chipped bowls on the windowsill like it was a dinner table.
"You've eaten worse," she said dryly.
Selene grinned. "Once found a ration pack so expired it had a warning in Latin."
Aria chuckled softly. "And you still ate it?"
"Split it with Iris. She threw up on my boots. Said it tasted like salted regret."
The name slipped out too fast. Aria paused, spoon midair. "Who's Iris?"
Selene froze, then looked away. "Nobody."
But Aria wasn't buying it. Not completely. "You keep saying names like I'm supposed to know them."
"You will," Selene said.
"When?"
Selene reached across the windowsill and took her hand. "When you're strong enough to carry them."
They lapsed into silence again. The kind that was too comfortable to feel normal. The kind you only earned after surviving things together. Aria didn't pull away.
Later that evening, Selene taught her how to disarm a tripwire in the stairwell, crouched together in the hallway under dim emergency lighting.
"Twist clockwise, not counter. You go the other way and you'll blow your foot off."
"Comforting."
"Keep your fingers here. Tension hook goes here. You feel that flex?"
"Yeah."
"You're a natural," Selene murmured. "Scary, actually."
Aria looked up. "Because I'm learning fast?"
Selene nodded once. "Faster than I expected."
"Does that scare you?"
"A little."
"Why?"
"Because you're remembering."
Aria stilled. "I… I don't remember anything. Not really."
"You will."
That night, the blackout hit just after sundown. Half the district dropped off the grid. No flickering ad banners, no glow from the streetlights. Just black sky and the occasional hiss of static from broken comms.
Selene was on the rooftop when Aria found her.
She was smoking, something she rarely did. A quiet rebellion against herself. Her boots were still wet from the alley rain, jacket zipped high, eyes distant. Aria slid onto the ledge beside her, legs swinging over the city.
"Do you ever feel like you're wearing someone else's body?" Aria asked.
Selene flicked ash off the edge. "Every day."
"I see things sometimes. Not dreams. Just… flashes. Blood. Fire. A girl. She's calm. Too calm."
"What's she doing?"
"She's dying," Aria said softly. "And she looks like me."
Selene went still.
Aria glanced at her. "Say something."
"She is you," Selene whispered, too raw to hide it.
Aria blinked. "What?"
"Nothing. Just—forget it."
But she knew Aria wouldn't forget it. She wasn't that kind of girl. She carried questions the way others carried scars.
Selene looked at her and felt something inside her tilt. The city below buzzed quietly, unaware that its most important secret was sitting twenty stories up, swinging her feet like a teenager.
"I think I was part of something," Aria said after a long silence. "Something bigger than me. Something that went wrong."
"You were."
Aria looked at her sharply. "You keep doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Talking like you know who I was."
Selene leaned closer, voice soft but grounded. "Because I do."
Aria didn't move away.
And when Selene leaned in, when their foreheads nearly touched, when the night wind curled around them like a third presence—Aria whispered, "Then tell me."
"I can't. Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because once I do… there's no turning back."
They sat like that for a long time. No answers. No promises. Just the quiet gravity of what hadn't been said.
Selene would give her everything.
But not tonight.
Tonight, all she could offer was this — proximity and the truth she couldn't speak.
Because Aria had once died to save them all.
And Selene would burn the world to make sure she didn't have to do it again.