**Chapter Fifteen: Homecoming
Six weeks after they pulled her from Voss's basement, Luna Sky walked out of County General with her parents flanking her like nervous bodyguards. The November air bit at her cheeks—*real* air, not the recycled hospital stench—and for the first time in months, she almost felt human again.
Almost.
John leaned against his car in the pickup zone, freshly reinstated detective's badge glinting at his hip. He'd gotten his job back—and then some. The chief had promoted him after Luna's fractured testimony matched the evidence they'd found in the abandoned surgical wing. Not that she'd told them *everything*. Some things couldn't be explained.
"Ready?" John opened the passenger door for her.
Her mother clutched her arm a little tighter. "We can take her home, Detective."
"I know, ma'am." John's voice was careful, polite. "But I promised Luna I'd show her something first."
The unspoken *it's case-related* hung in the air. Her parents exchanged a look but let go. They'd learned not to push too hard these past weeks—not when their daughter still woke up screaming about faces in the dark.
---
The drive was quiet. Too quiet.
"You're staring," Luna said without looking at John.
"Am I?"
"Like I'm gonna dissolve." She pressed her palm against the car window, watching the streetlights blur through her fingers. "I'm not made of glass, Carter."
John's grip tightened on the wheel. "I know."
He didn't.
No one did.
Because no one else saw what happened last Tuesday at 3:17 AM when Luna thought she was alone in the hospital bathroom. How her reflection had *stepped back* when she leaned toward the mirror. How it had mouthed words she couldn't hear.
The car stopped outside a nondescript brick building. John killed the engine. "Before you go home... there's this."
Inside was a makeshift memorial—photos of missing girls lining the walls, candles flickering beneath. Some faces Luna recognized from Voss's tanks. Others... others were new.
"We never found most of them," John said quietly. "But we're still looking."
Luna's fingers brushed a photo of a smiling redhead. The moment she touched it, a jolt of *something* shot up her arm—
*—darkness and screaming and the scent of formaldehyde—*
—then gone.
She jerked back.
John didn't miss it. "Luna?"
"Fine." She forced a smile. "Just... tired."
He studied her for a beat too long before nodding. "Come on. I'll take you home."
---
Her childhood bedroom was exactly as she'd left it—band posters curling at the edges, half-finished sketchbooks piled on the desk, the faint smell of vanilla body spray lingering in the curtains. Like a museum exhibit titled *Normal Teenage Girl*.
Her mother hovered in the doorway. "We kept everything... just in case."
Luna ran a finger along her dresser. No dust. They'd cleaned regularly, waiting for a miracle.
That night, over meatloaf and store-bought pie, her father finally asked the question they'd all been avoiding.
"What really happened to you, Luna-bell?"
The fork trembled in her hand. Across the table, her parents' faces were a study in careful hope.
She told them half-truths.
Dark rooms. Needles. A man who wanted to "fix" broken things.
She didn't tell them about the whispers.
Or the hunger.
Or how sometimes, when she blinked, the world stayed dark a second too long.
---
John started showing up unannounced.
First with case files—"Thought you might recognize this girl." Then with coffee—"Your mom said you weren't sleeping." Finally, with no excuse at all, just his leather jacket smelling of rain and his hands shoved awkwardly in his pockets.
"You don't have to check on me," Luna said one evening as they sat on her porch swing.
John's shoulder pressed warm against hers. "I know."
A silence. Then—
"Your reflection moved today, didn't it?"
Luna went very still.
John exhaled. "I saw it in the toaster at the diner. Just for a second." His fingers brushed hers. "I didn't imagine that, did I?"
Above them, the porch light buzzed. Somewhere in the house, her parents laughed at some old sitcom.
Normal sounds.
Normal people.
Luna turned her hand over, letting their palms meet. "No. You didn't imagine it."
John didn't pull away.
That was the thing about John Carter—he saw the cracks in her and stepped closer instead of running.
(And in the darkened living room window behind them, a shadow that wasn't either of theirs smiled.)
---
**Epilogue: Three Months Later**
The nightmares lessened.
The tremors stopped.
Luna started writing again—first hesitant drafts and some drawings, then furious charcoal smears of glass tanks and tangled wires. John pinned one above his desk at the precinct.
They never talked about the thing in the mirror.
Not when it mimicked Luna's movements a beat too slow.
Not when John's coffee cup reflected eyes that weren't his.
And certainly not the night Luna woke to find her hand pressed against the bedroom window *from the outside*, her reflection mouthing two words before vanishing:
*"He's waiting."*
But that's a story for another time.
*In the abandoned surgical wing, a single tank hums to life. Inside, a face that isn't Luna's—but isn't *not* hers either—opens its eyes.*