Chapter 3 Echoes Behind the Glass

Zayden hadn't shown up at the museum in three days.

Layla told herself that was a win.

It meant the routine shift had worked. She had cut off whatever thread he was trying to pull. She'd done it before-shut doors, changed names, disappeared into new shadows. One less man intrigued by her silence. One less threat.

But something in her didn't settle.

Not relief. Not fear.

Something worse-awareness.

Each morning after his absence, she moved with the same silent steps through the marble halls, slipped into the archive room, and locked the door behind her. But the silence wasn't the same anymore. It felt... hollow. Like a breath that wouldn't fully land.

Every time, the staff hallway creaked.

Every time a key turned in a door.

Every time she passed a dark window, and caught her reflection.

She expected him.

And she hated that.

She hated that she remembered the exact cadence of his voice, the warmth behind his cold words, the stillness in his stare-like he could hold time if he wanted to.

She hated that she'd felt seen.

And most of all, she hated that he hadn't come back.

Because now her silence had an echo.

She didn't go home right after work that day.

Instead, she wandered. That was rare.

Down streets with no names, through markets with closed stalls, past late-night cafés with strangers laughing about lives that didn't shatter at the seams.

Layla wasn't running from anything.

She just didn't want to be still. Stillness made her listen. And when she listened, she remembered.

She reached her building after dark. The stairwell smelled of rust and bleach. Her keys slipped into the lock without effort.

Inside, nothing had changed.

The flat was clean. Cold. Perfect. The kind of place no one could read you in. The kind of place that couldn't be traced back to who you were.

The mask still sat on the desk. Like it was waiting.

She didn't reach for it.

Instead, she sat at the edge of her couch and opened her notebook. Her fingers flipped to the page with his name, Zayden Cross-bold and isolated at the top.

She flipped to the next.

It was blank.

She stared at it for minutes that felt like hours.

Then she wrote one sentence:

He left, but he's still everywhere.

Then she stopped.

Closed the book.

Because even thoughts about him felt too intimate now.

Her phone buzzed.

The screen lit up once.

Z:

Tell me what you dream about.

She froze.

Not because he messaged.

But because she'd just had a dream.

One where she was running barefoot down a hallway lined with mirrors. Her mask shattered behind her with every step, but her face stayed hidden. When she turned around, he was there.

Not chasing.

Just watching.

And the mirrors showed his face behind hers.

She didn't reply.

Seconds passed.

Another buzz.

Z:

Fine. I'll tell you mine instead.

I saw you. Not your face. Just... the stillness of you. And I kept waking up angry because I couldn't get to it. Like your silence was a door I wasn't allowed to open.

She didn't move.

It wasn't flirtation. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't even invasive.

It was worse than all those things combined,

It was honest.

And honest things... tore through armour in ways bullets never could.

Her thumb hovered over the keyboard.

Then she typed:

Layla:

Maybe some doors are locked for a reason.

No reply.

Not for minutes.

Not for hours.

She went to bed expecting silence.

But silence didn't come.

At 3:17 AM, the phone buzzed again.

Z:

That's never stopped me before.

The next morning, the museum air felt different.

Not in temperature. In tension.

Her badge scanned. The back hallway echoed louder than usual. Her fingers twitched as she typed into the logbook. She tried to rationalise it. She wasn't paranoid. She was precise.

She entered the archive room and froze.

There was something on her desk.

A small, square envelope.

No name. Just a black wax seal pressed into the back.

She shut the door. Locked it.

Took slow steps toward it.

Her fingers slid under the seal and cracked it open.

Inside: a photo.

Of her.

From two years ago.

No mask.

No shadows.

Just her.

In a coat she no longer owned, standing at a train station, she couldn't remember the name of.

The note underneath it was handwritten.

"You wear the mask so well, I almost forgot the girl underneath."

There was no name. But she didn't need one.

She sat down, heart steady-but her pulse screamed behind her ribs.

Because he knew.

Not all of it.

Not the truth.

But enough to make her realise she wasn't hidden anymore.

And he wasn't just watching.

He was unravelling.

Later that night, she didn't go home.

She went somewhere no one had seen her in years.

An old diner on the edge of the city.

The kind of place people went to disappeared.

She sat in the back booth, hood up, eyes on the street.

And he walked in.

Not rushed.

Not surprised.

Like he knew she'd be there.

He sat across from her without asking.

They didn't speak for a full minute.

Then.

"You kept the photo," he said.

"You trespassed."

"You left the door cracked."

She narrowed her eyes. "What do you want from me?"

He didn't blink. "I don't want anything."

"Liar."

"I just want to know what made you vanish."

She stared at him, voice lower now. "Knowing doesn't change anything."

"It might."

"No," she said. "It won't save me. And it won't save you either."

A pause.

"You think I need saving?"

She looked at him.

And for the first time, she let something flicker behind her expression.

Not weakness. Not pain.

Something far colder.

Warning.

"I think you don't understand the danger of pulling masks off people who've bled behind them," she whispered.

He leaned closer.

"Then show me what it cost you."

Silence wrapped around them again.

But this time, it wasn't empty.

It was a promise.