~Leila Cross~
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I don't move at first.
I just stand there, watching them.
My sister's laugh is a soft thing. Musical. The kind of sound that once made me believe the world still had beauty left in it. But now, hearing it tumble out of her mouth while her fingers lace into the hand of the man who killed me smile, it's not music.
It's a knife. Twisting.
They walk past me without a glance. Without hesitation. Like I'm just another shadow on the street. Maybe I am. Maybe that's all I ever was.
Julian says something I can't hear. She throws her head back and laughs again, this time louder. Her hair has grown longer since I last saw her. She's dyed it a honey gold. It suits her. Makes her look less like the girl who used to sneak into my bed during thunderstorms, whispering stories about the monsters under hers.
Now?
She's holding hands with one.
I clench my fists inside my hoodie pocket.
Don't react. Not yet.
Because I don't know how long she's been in on it.
I don't know if she's a victim or something worse.
They disappear around the corner and I finally breathe again if you can call what I do now breathing.
It's strange how grief changes shape. First, it's a scream in your throat. Then it's a cold stone lodged behind your ribs. Now, it's silence.
A buzzing, static silence.
I turn away from the Haven Post building. I'm not ready to go inside yet. Not tonight. Not with his scent still lingering in the air. I need to be smarter than that.
You only get one chance when you're supposed to be dead.
I walk the city like a ghost.
Every block is a grave marker. Every memory curled around corners like smoke.
I pass the coffee shop where Julian used to meet me after editorial meetings, the one with burnt espresso and mint-flavored croissants I hated. We kissed behind the back dumpster once, like teenagers, drunk on adrenaline and lies.
I should've known then.
I should've known when he stopped touching me during thunderstorms. When he smiled too wide at bad news. When he started locking his phone like it held state secrets. I thought it was just stress. Deadlines. Maybe even guilt.
It was murder.
And I didn't see it coming.
The streetlights flicker above me, casting shadows that twitch like living things.
I duck into an alley. Pull my burner phone from my pocket and scroll through the names I've been tracking. I haven't called anyone. Not yet. But I've been watching.
Miriam Crest senior editor at the paper. She'd always hated me. Said I was too bold. Too loud. Too ambitious for someone who "didn't come from much." I caught her shredding documents the week before my death. She smiled when I caught her. Told me some things don't need to be saved.
She's next on my list.
But tonight… tonight is for memories.
I take the long walk back to the motel.
The room is exactly the way I left it—quiet, dim, a little damp from the leak in the ceiling. The TV flickers with some old horror movie I forgot to turn off. A girl screams in the background while a shadow looms behind her.
Cliché. Predictable.
Unlike the way I died.
I sink into the bed, arms crossed behind my head, and stare up at the cracked ceiling.
And just like that, the flashback drags me under.
It was raining the day I met Julian.
That kind of silver-gray rain that turns cities into watercolor paintings. I had just gotten off a city bus, soaked to the knees, clutching a cheap umbrella that had already given up the fight. I ducked into the Haven Post building with water dripping from my eyelashes and a pitch in my hand.
He was in the elevator.
Clean suit. Leather briefcase. A face that didn't look like it belonged in the city. He was smiling at nothing just… smiling.
He held the elevator door for me. Our eyes met. Something in his gaze slowed the world down.
"Leila Cross," I said.
He chuckled. "You introduce yourself to strangers in elevators?"
"I introduce myself to potential future bosses."
He grinned. "Julian Ward. Editor-in-chief."
Just like that.
That was the beginning of it all. Of me and him.
He gave me my first front-page feature. He bought me coffee I didn't ask for. He read my work like it mattered. Like I mattered.
And I fell for it.
God, I fell so hard.
The first time we kissed, I had just come back from a story about a crooked city councilman. I still had mud on my boots. He kissed me anyway, right there in the hallway between the cubicles and the copy machine.
"Why me?" I asked.
He tilted his head. "Because you bite."
I smiled.
He never said what he meant by that. Not until the night he drove the metaphor in with an actual blade.
I wake hours later in a cold sweat, my throat dry.
There's a sound at the window.
Not the wind. Not the pipes.
A tap.
Deliberate.
Sharp.
I reach for the knife beneath my pillow and edge toward the window.
It's too dark to see anything clearly.
Another tap.
I swallow the scream rising in my chest and slide the curtain aside
and find a single lily taped to the glass.
Dead. Wilted.
Brown-edged.
Just like the ones that filled my coffin.
There's a card beneath it.
No name.
No return address.
Just four words:
"We know you're back."
And this time,
I'm not the only one rising from the dead.