Chapter 2 The Boy With The Hollow Eyes

It was just past midnight, the sky cracked open with pale moonlight. A thin mist coiled around the crooked headstones like fingers searching for warmth. The air hung heavy with the scent of moss, damp earth, and something older-something that hadn't breathed in centuries.

Evelyn wandered between the graves, her bare feet silent against the dewy grass. She didn't sleep anymore. Couldn't. Not since she came back. The voices wouldn't let her. They whispered through the trees, from beneath the floorboards, behind mirrors. Even here, among the dead, they hummed just beneath the edge of thought.

And then she saw him.

A boy leaned against the weatherworn statue of a weeping angel at the far edge of the cemetery. He stood perfectly still, as though carved from the same stone. His face was pale in the moonlight, too pale, and he wore black from collar to boots, as if mourning something he couldn't name.

At first glance, he seemed her age-seventeen, maybe. But the longer she looked, the more wrong he seemed. His eyes, shadowed beneath a curtain of dark hair, weren't just still. They were empty. Not vacant-but bottomless, as if they had forgotten how to reflect the world.

"You shouldn't be out here," Evelyn said quietly, her voice uncertain in the silence.

The boy didn't move. "I could say the same to you, Blackthorne."

Evelyn froze. The cold air pressed against her skin like ice water. "How do you know my name?"

Only then did the boy turn to face her fully. His gaze met hers, and Evelyn instinctively took a step back. Looking into his eyes was like falling into a well with no bottom. She felt seen, down to the bone. Not just seen-known.

"I've been waiting for you," he said. "Ever since the Hollow brought you back."

Her breath caught in her throat. There was no fear, exactly, but a deep, unshakable dread rooted somewhere behind her ribs. The kind of dread that didn't come from danger-but from recognition.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The boy tilted his head, considering her with a slow, deliberate stillness that didn't feel human. "A friend," he said at last. "Or an enemy. That part depends on you."

Evelyn narrowed her eyes. "You're one of them, aren't you? One of the things that took me."

"No," he said, and for a flicker of a moment, something like sorrow crossed his face. "But I've walked where you walked. Died where you died."

She felt the chill settle deeper in her spine. "What do you want from me?"

His eyes darkened, impossibly.

"Not me," he said. "But the Hollow. It has plans for you, Evelyn. And once it takes something back, it never truly lets go."

Wind stirred the leaves around them, carrying whispers that sounded too much like her name. Evelyn clenched her fists, her pulse roaring in her ears.

The boy turned away again, his figure dissolving slowly into the mist.

"We'll meet again," he said.

And then he was gone.