Page 30 of Ghosted

She gives just enough to make me curious, then acts like curiosity is my problem.

Maybe it fucking is.

Because I saw teeth under all that quiet, and now I can’t stop thinking about what it would take for her to show me.

Knowing her building doesn’t mean I’m looking for her.

It doesn’t mean I want to follow her.

It means I want to get there first.

That sounds better.

Cleaner.

Less like obsession and more like strategy.

A shadow near the arts building. Footsteps behind her in the rain. A flicker in the darkroom that makes her pause and think of me before she knows why.

Not Wraith.

Me.

Jagger.

I don’t want to scare her away. I want to scare her just enough that she learns fear tastes better when she stops running from it.

Enough that leaving stops feeling like the obvious choice and staying starts feeling like the mistake she wants to make anyway.

Then every safe place she has starts to rot around the edges.

And that’s when she’ll start looking for me inside them.

My steps slow before I reach the courtyard.

I tell myself it’s because the path is slick.

Bullshit.

A cluster of students spills through the building doors, laughing under umbrellas, portfolios tucked under arms, coffee cups balanced badly in wet hands. I don’t look for her right away. I watch the crowd the way I watch a fight, waiting for the part that doesn’t match the rest.

Then she steps out.

Black umbrella. Camera bag on her shoulder. Heavy boots splashing through shallow puddles like she doesn’t give a shit about getting mud on them. Her hair is loose, dark and damp at the ends, curling slightly where the rain has caught it. She’s wearing a long black coat over something lace at the throat, silver crosses tucked against her chest, rings flashing when she adjusts the strap of her bag.

Daylight softens her, but it fucking shouldn’t.

She looked right in the warehouse, swallowed by smoke and red light, camera lifted like a weapon she knew how to use. Out here, with rain dripping off her umbrella and students moving around her, she looks smaller.

Quieter.

Not safer, though.

That’s the problem.

Nothing about Alice Aster looks safe to me.

She pauses beneath the entrance awning and checks her phone, thumb moving over the screen. One earbud is tucked in, the other hanging loose, white cord stark against all that black. Her mouth presses into a line, almost annoyed, like whatever she’s reading is wasting her time.