Chapter 1 The collision

The rain hit the windshield like shattered glass-hard, wild, relentless. Drace Vellion barely blinked. He was numb. The whiskey burned in his veins, but not enough to erase the ghosts clawing at his mind. The city blurred past his window, neon lights bleeding into the shadows like wounds refusing to close.

He shouldn't have been driving.

But he needed to escape.

He needed silence.

And then-

a scream.

A body.

A loud, sickening thud.

His foot slammed on the brakes, tires screeching on wet asphalt. The world lurched into stillness, except for his own heartbeat pounding like a war drum in his ears.

Drace stumbled out of the car, drenched in guilt and rain. His heart dropped when he saw her - a girl, limp on the pavement, her dark hair tangled in blood and water. Pale skin. Cracked lips. Eyes barely open. She looked fragile, like she didn't belong in the filthy violence of the night.

But there was something else... Her eyes. For a second, they flickered - like someone else was staring out at him. Someone not afraid. Someone... cold.

And then, she passed out.

Later... At the Hospital

Drace sat in the emergency room, hands shaking. He'd turned himself in. Called the ambulance. The guilt gnawed at him - not because he feared the consequences, but because something in that girl shook him to his core.

He found out her name: Ruby Elgrave. No family on record. No emergency contacts. No job. Nothing. Just a girl with too many bruises and a strange, almost haunted stillness about her.

The doctor mentioned something odd.

"She's talking to herself in different voices. Saying different names. It's... unusual."

Drace couldn't explain it, but he didn't leave.

He stayed. Watched her through the glass. Waited.

And inside Ruby's mind, behind the bandages and silence...

The sisters had awoken.