Ashfall crawled out of dawn beneath a sky the color of old bruises. The rain had washed last night's blood into the gutters, but it couldn't rinse the rumor off the city's tongue. Everywhere — from flickering news screens above greasy diners to battered radios in rusted taxis — the same word coiled like a secret promise: "The Black Raven."
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Inside AshTV's cramped newsroom, Aria Morgan's voice was smooth and grave as she stared into the camera's cold eye. "This morning, police have confirmed the body of Warren Bellows, local businessman and suspected human trafficker, was found dead in the Dockside industrial sector. No arrests have been made. Eyewitness reports claim a masked vigilante is responsible — the same shadow the streets now call the Black Raven."
Behind her, the newsroom buzzed like a kicked hornet's nest. Marcus Fenn paced by the glass wall, his suit sharp enough to cut but his eyes dull from too many late nights trying to keep AshTV just one step ahead of Umbra's leash. Evan Holt, the young field reporter with a camera always half-charged, scrolled through shaky cellphone clips — an alley, a whisper of black wings, a body on wet pavement.
Evan leaned closer to Aria's desk when the broadcast cut to a commercial. "You think she's real? Or just some street punk in a mask?"
Aria tapped her pen against the teleprompter notes. "Does it matter? The city wants a ghost. Ghosts don't testify."
Marcus's jaw tightened. "Keep the focus on Bellows, not the myth. The DA's office wants the narrative clean — one dead trafficker, one investigation, no talk of vigilantes. Not yet."
Aria raised an eyebrow but said nothing. She'd been in this game long enough to read the rot between lines. Ashfall's cameras lied better than any anchor could.
---
Ten blocks away in a narrow row house painted peeling blue, Iris Calder flipped pancakes for Maya Cadee while Liam sat hunched at the kitchen table, eyes flicking between his cheap tablet and the muted news playing on the wall screen. Nathan leaned against the sink, shirt crisp, tie neat, phone buzzing every few seconds with encrypted chatter. He ignored it for now — or pretended to.
Maya Cadee's small fingers smeared syrup across her superhero sketch — a feathered shadow soaring above stick-figure bad guys. "Mommy, do you think the Black Raven eats the mean men?"
Iris laughed, soft and tired. "No, baby, she doesn't eat them. She just… stops them."
Liam snorted. "How do you know it's a she?"
"Because," Maya declared, mouth sticky, "girls are braver."
Nathan's smile didn't reach his eyes. He watched Iris too closely. Watched Liam's curious glances at his phone. He thought about what Liam might overhear if he left one line unsecured. He thought about what Umbra would do if they knew Iris still loved someone else — someone like Selene Kain, who noticed things even the Bureau missed.
Iris ruffled Liam's hair, forcing him to look at her, not Nathan. "I want you both home right after school. No shortcuts through the old rail yard, Liam — I mean it."
"Yeah, yeah," Liam muttered. He'd go anyway. He needed to know what his father whispered into locked phones at 3 a.m.
Nathan pressed a kiss to Iris's temple, a ghost of a good husband's routine. He smiled down at Maya Cadee's crayon masterpiece and didn't flinch when he saw the black wings drawn wide and sharp.
---
In the belly of Ashfall County Morgue, Selene stripped off her latex gloves and dropped them into the red biohazard bin. Rourke barked from his office doorway, a file flapping in his hand like an angry bird. "Kain! Davidson report — I want it on my desk before you vanish into thin air again."
She didn't answer, didn't have to. She knew how to make herself invisible when Rourke's scowl needed a target.
Damian Holt leaned against the cold steel counter, unbothered by the smell of bleach and death. He held two paper cups. "Guess which one's decaf," he said, grin crooked, hoping she'd play along.
Selene didn't. She took the nearer cup, sipped, let him watch her throat work. He liked pretending he could read her. He never would.
"You ever watch the news, Kain?" he asked, voice careful. "You see that bit about Dockside? Some vigilante offed Bellows."
She lifted an eyebrow. "Tragic."
Damian chuckled. "Tragic my ass. Bastard had it coming. But you ever wonder — one of these days that ghost's gonna slip up. Leave something behind."
Selene tilted her head, mouth twitching at the corner. "Maybe she already has."
He blinked, caught off guard by the trace of amusement. Then her mask slipped back into place — plain, dull, the invisible girl sorting the city's dead.
---
Halfway across Dockside, Reggie Slate propped open the battered door of the Molted Wing, sweeping last night's cigarette butts out into the alley behind the docks. The Molted Wing smelled of stale whiskey, wet wood, and the promise that your secrets died here or not at all.
Rowan Pierce nursed a black coffee at the bar's end, her voice hoarse from chain-smoking questions nobody wanted to answer.
"Rough night?" Reggie rumbled, leaning on his broom.
Rowan shrugged. "Rough city. How many rumors you hear last night?"
Reggie snorted, spat into the gutter. "Rumors don't pay my tabs, sweetheart. But keep poking — maybe you'll meet that ghost you keep scribbling about."
Rowan smirked. "Maybe I already have."
---
In a basement apartment three blocks from a boarded-up church, Camilla Dupont checked the needle in her trembling fingers. She told herself she hated it — the hush of keys in her lock at 2 a.m., the way blood dripped onto her cracked tiles, the way Selene Kain never asked permission to bleed out on her floor.
But every time she patched the Raven's ribs shut, she remembered what it felt like to be helpless. To wish for a ghost with black wings and knives sharper than the city's teeth.
She finished sterilizing her tools. If Selene needed her tonight, she'd answer. And hate herself for it tomorrow.
---
Somewhere above Dockside's warehouse roofs, Selene crouched beneath a rusted vent, Micah's voice tickling her ear through cheap comms static.
"News says they're calling you the Black Raven now. Got a nice ring, huh?"
"Means nothing."
"Means fear. They're scared, Kain. Even Silas. Especially Silas."
She flexed her glove — the one with the fresh slice where Bellows' blood had seeped warm between her fingers. Below, the yard was quiet, but her mind played last night's hunt on a loop. The children packed in cold trucks. The crack of Bellows' knee under her boot. The small mercy of a single bullet.
*"New intel," Micah breathed. "Silas is moving again tonight. Same dock, different cargo. He thinks the Raven's satisfied with one corpse."
Selene smiled then — small, cruel, hidden in the rain. She traced the feather-shaped blade against her thigh.
"He'll learn."
She rose, shadow to shadow, the city's rumor given form. Ashfall wanted a ghost. She'd give them wings wide enough to blot out every lie they buried under marble and neon.
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END OF CHAPTER FOURTEEN