Jack didn’t remember getting back to the dorm.
The world had gone fog-silent after the bridge. After her voice, small and breakable in the dark.
“Sometimes I wish I could disappear.”
He hadn’t said anything.
He never did—
Not when it could’ve made a difference.
The room met him like a mausoleum. Same cold bed. Same ashtray. Same washed-out glow of streetlight sliced across the wall through half-closed blinds. He undressed in silence. Dropped onto the mattress. Pulled the blanket over his face like a shroud.
And then sleep found him.
And so did she.
Not Helen.
Not quite.
Her laughter came first. That little crooked smile when he tried to act smug. Her eyes—bright, disbelieving—when she looked at him like he was more than the sum of his past.
Then—
Rain.
A road swallowed by storm.
Jack stood alone. Barefoot. Cold. The world blurred around the edges.
Glass cracked beneath his step.
Or maybe it was bone.
He looked down.
Blood.
Everywhere.
She was standing in the rain again. Hair plastered to her face. Hands shaking. Her scream lost in the thunder, stretched thin across the sky.
She wasn’t Helen.
Or maybe she was.
The face flickered, unstable—like bad footage through a broken screen.
He blinked.
Now it was soft lips in the dark, mouthing his name.
Not his name.
“[—]...”
A name buried deep. One he hadn’t heard in years. Maybe in dreams. Maybe in nightmares.
She reached for him. Blood smeared down her palm.
Not hers.
“Why did you do it?”
The voice didn’t match the mouth.
It came from somewhere else. Deeper. Older. From behind him. Inside him. Layered—like a voice built from echoes.
Another scream—
Helen?
No.
Yes?
The scene fractured—
Like a mirror dropped from a high place.
One second: her running down alley rain.
Next: her back turned, walking down the path behind Crossroads Commons.
Then: a boy on the ground, skull caved in. Blood pooled like ink.
Then: a coffee cup slipping from a girl's hand—shattering before it hit the floor.
His fists were clenched.
Tighter.
Tighter.
The face on the ground kept changing.
Sometimes the boy.
Sometimes himself.
And she—whoever she was—just screamed his name again.
“[—]!”
Thunder cracked.
A mirror shattered.
Jack woke up with a jolt.
Bolt upright.
Sheets tangled around his legs like restraints. Chest heaving. Heart slamming like fists on a locked door.
His hands—trembling.
He touched his chest. Still there. Still whole. Barely.
The room was dark again. But the guilt…
The guilt glowed.
He stared at his hands, watched the shake in his knuckles.
Did I hurt her?
Did I hurt Helen?
No.
It wasn’t Helen.
Was it?
He didn’t know anymore.
Maybe the mirror couldn’t hold the difference.
Maybe they were both standing behind the same glass, watching him from the cracks.
He didn’t sleep again.
He just sat there, hunched on the edge of the bed, while the city crawled toward morning like it was limping out of a war.
The dream clung to his skin like smoke.
His chest felt bruised.
His throat—dry from a scream he never let out.
Somewhere, a clock ticked. Too loud.
Rain tapped the window, soft and ceaseless, like fingers begging to be let in.
He peeled himself off the bed like someone tearing off old bandages.
Cold water to the face.
Shirt—wrinkled.
Jacket—still damp at the sleeves.
Boots—scuffed from the freight yard, stained and left that way.
He lit a cigarette he didn’t want.
Let it burn between his lips.
Let it taste like ash.
Like consequence.
Then he stepped outside.
The walk to VIAS was colder than it should’ve been.
The streets hadn’t quite woken up yet. Just the low hum of freight trams in the distance. The clatter of a coffee shop unlocking too early. A raven perched on a lamppost, watching like it had seen too much.
Jack kept his head down. Hood up. Hands jammed in his pockets.
He knew the way by heart now.
Past the alley that always reeked of rust.
Past the bakery with the fogged-up windows.
Over the footbridge that crossed the old service rail—
The same one where she’d said it.
Helen.
“Sometimes I wish I could disappear.”
His boot hit a loose stone. It skittered across the pavement like glass.
He stopped.
Stared at the sound like it had come from inside him.
He could still hear her scream—the one from the dream.
The not-Helen.
The one who called him by a name that wasn’t his anymore.
“Why did you do it?”
He shook his head. Walked faster.
VIAS loomed ahead, sharp and sterile. All clean lines and proud banners, preaching progress and a future that felt like it belonged to someone else.
Students filtered in like water through a sieve. Half-asleep. Already burdened.
Jack slipped in with them. Faceless in the tide.
He moved like a machine. No tremor in his hands now.
Machines didn’t shake.
But when he passed the west wing glass panels—
his reflection caught his eye.
Just for a second.
The face looking back wasn’t his.
It was hers.
It was his own.
It was something else.
And the cracks were deeper now.
The lecture hall was too bright.
Too many windows.
Too many eyes.
Too much glass.
Jack sat near the back, where the walls met in shadow. Hood down now, hair damp from the drizzle outside. His notebook lay open in front of him—mostly blank, except for a few scribbled circuit diagrams and a corner filled with cracked mirrors, drawn over and over again like his hand had a mind of its own.
The professor—Dr. Klesic, Systems Automation—paced in front of the giant whiteboard like he was leading a war briefing. Tall. Wiry. A voice like snapped wire and burnt coffee.
“Rudberg,” he said without warning, pausing mid-sentence.
Jack’s head jerked up.
Dr. Klesic’s eyes found him through the crowd like they’d been waiting all morning.
“Since you’ve apparently decided to show up today,” he continued dryly, “why don’t you come down and walk the class through your solution to the drone swarming protocol?”
Jack blinked. His stomach twisted. For a second, he forgot where he was.
He heard her laughter.
He saw her again—blurry, rain-soaked.
A scream.
Her face shattered by fear. Her eyes, once full of love, now filled with something else.
Fear.
Hate.
His hand twitched under the desk. His knee began bouncing.
The class turned toward him—slow and expectant. Some amused. Some indifferent. A few curious.
He stood, hesitantly. Like something being pulled from deep underwater.
Each step toward the whiteboard felt wrong. Like his body didn’t want to move this way anymore. Like his mouth didn’t belong to him.
He took the marker with a trembling hand and stared at the blank surface.
Flash.
Her silhouette in the rain.
His fists, red to the wrist.
The sound of her voice breaking on his name.
That name.
He gripped the marker tighter.
The silence grew—pregnant, uncomfortable.
A cough from somewhere in the room.
Jack forced out his voice, dry and far away. “Uh… it was a… dynamic loop mesh design. I modified the base logic to let unit-level AI reroute command priority if the lead drone failed…”
It didn’t sound like him. It didn’t even sound real.
He drew three shaky circles, connecting them with uneven lines—explaining swarm logic, signal bounce, the emergency fallback system he’d spent two weeks debugging until 3AM—
—but it all blurred. The board shimmered like water. His hand felt foreign.
And then—faint, just faint enough to question—
A shape.
A smear.
The outline of a girl’s face.
Eyes wide. Mouth open. Covered in rain. Drenched in horror.
Jack dropped the marker.
It clattered against the tile like a gun hitting the floor.
He turned to the professor. “I—I need to go.”
Dr. Klesic frowned. “Mr. Rudberg, are you—?”
“I said I need to go.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He left.
The door slammed behind him.
The hallway outside was colder than it had any right to be.
The stairwell was still.
Dust hung in shafts of tired light, like even it hadn’t slept.
Jack sat on the second-to-last step, hood up, head low, back hunched like he was bracing against a memory still crawling off his spine. His jacket—too big at the shoulders, sleeves bunched slightly at the wrists—folded around him in a way that made him look narrower than he was. Like a soft-spoken engineer. A tired kid with bones too big for his ambition.
It was a look he’d curated.
One that said: Don’t notice me.
Creed’s footsteps came before his voice—sharp, confident, like he thought the world bent when he walked through it.
“Well, if it isn’t drone-boy himself,” he said, arms crossed, voice heavy with stale mockery. “Heard you froze up in class. Real genius move, Rudberg.”
Jack said nothing.
“Stage fright?” Creed tried again. “Or are those scars in your head finally catching up to your mouth?”
Still silence.
Then the wind stirred.
It slipped through a crack in the stairwell glass—just wide enough for something unseen to slip in with it.
The gust tugged at Jack’s jacket, peeling it back just enough for the loose sleeve to slide down his arm.
And the illusion shattered.
Creed’s breath caught.
Jack’s arm, once hidden beneath layers of softness, didn’t match the image he wore. Muscle coiled like cables—lean, scarred, tight like tempered steel. Not the accidental marks of workshop mishaps, but the deliberate cruelty of something—or someone—who had tried to break him.
And failed.
Thick ridges. Pale and brutal. Some spiraled like barbed wire, others etched in clean, almost ritualistic lines. Restraints. Saws. Scars that told stories with teeth.
Creed stepped back. “What the hell—was that—?”
Jack, still seated, pulled the sleeve back into place with a motion too smooth to be flustered. Rehearsed. Silent. He didn’t meet Creed’s eyes.
Creed fumbled for control. “That wasn’t... that didn’t come from a workshop. I’ve seen burns. Lashbacks. You don’t get that from gears and wires—”
“They weren’t accidents,” Jack murmured.
Creed blinked. “Then what were they?”
Jack stood.
His jacket slipped back into place. The lines disappeared. The illusion returned. A student again—overworked, underslept, forgettable.
But Creed had seen something else.
Jack took a breath. Calm. Measured. Then walked past without a glance.
At the top of the stairs, he paused.
“They were lessons,” he said.
Not loud.
But the words landed like a stone dropped into a deep well.
Slow. Echoing.
There was something wrong with his voice.
Creed’s brow furrowed.
Just for a moment—it felt like someone else had spoken. Like something other had worn Jack’s skin.
Then it passed.
Creed scoffed under his breath. “Weirdo.”
But he didn’t move.
He just stood there.
As if waiting for something else to shift.
Something else to crack.
The rain had passed, but its ghost lingered—silver mist curling low across the VIAS campus like breath on a mirror.
Jack stood alone near the industrial wing, the last few students trailing off behind him. He hadn’t stayed for the rest of the lecture. He couldn’t. Not after the thing with Creed. Not with the back of his mind feeling like a minefield—one wrong step from collapse.
The alley beside the lab building was quiet. Tucked behind exposed vents and rusted utility piping, it was a place no one walked unless they were avoiding being seen.
He took out a cigarette with practiced hands and glanced around.
No one.
Only then did he let the lighter flick open. The flame cut briefly through the mist before vanishing. Smoke coiled upward. He breathed in, slow.
As always, it steadied him. Just enough to think.
Just enough to feel.
Or maybe too much.
His hands trembled—not just from the cold. The first drag sliced through the buzzing in his skull. He tilted his head back against the wall, letting the smoke crawl out between his lips.
Then he saw her.
Across the fence, near the perimeter gate, Helen walked beside a tall man—dressed too clean, standing too straight to be a student. His voice was low, his hand brushed her sleeve, too casual to be innocent.
Helen didn’t smile.
She didn’t pull away, either.
Jack froze.
A sharp pressure hit his chest—not jealousy, not quite. Just something twisted and unfamiliar. His lips parted, but no words came.
You don’t know her, he told himself. She’s just some girl. You’re not even—
But his heart didn’t believe him.
The fog thickened between them.
And something cracked.
Flash—
Rain.
The loud kind. The kind that drowns voices and blurs streetlights.
But before that—
She sat beside him on the floor of a crumbling rooftop, knees tucked under her chin, listening to him talk about the kind of future that didn’t exist yet. He hadn’t meant to tell her so much—but she listened like it mattered.
And when he said, “I don’t think I’ll make it out,” she just nudged his shoulder with hers and whispered,
“You already have.”
That was the first time he’d believed it.
Flash—
Blood.
A scream torn open by the rain.
His name.
The body.
Her eyes—
Not dead.
Not yet.
Flash—
They were outside after curfew, huddled under a rusted balcony, trading dumb stories and flicking pebbles into puddles. She'd joked about running away to the other side of the world. He’d said he’d follow, if only to keep her from getting lost.
She laughed, low and surprised, and said,
“You’d really come with me?”
He hadn’t answered.
But she’d smiled like he had.
Flash—
Her face again, smeared and wrong. Her voice cracking apart.
“Don’t—don’t come near me—”
The words were thunder in his memory.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
He tried to move.
Tried to explain.
But in the memory, he always stood still.
Always.
He blinked.
The cigarette had burned low between his fingers, ash clinging stubbornly before falling to the wet concrete.
Across the way, Helen was still walking. The man beside her opened the fence gate. She glanced back once.
Not at him.
Just behind her.
And then they vanished into the fog.
Jack leaned harder into the cold wall, lungs tight.
That wasn’t her, he told himself.
But the glass had already cracked.
And the scream still echoed.
And her face—her real face—was already gone again.
All he had left was Helen’s.
And that terrified him more than anything.
Jack flicked the cigarette to the ground, crushed it under his heel, and exhaled one final breath of smoke before slipping out of the alley. The sky was starting to clear above VIAS, but the haze never quite left the ground. The kind of mist that clung to your ankles like it wanted to drag you under.
He made his way toward the west wing lecture halls—head down, hands shoved in his jacket pockets—just another kid, late to class. Another face in the fog.
But Ironvale didn’t let you blend in for long.
A patrol passed near the fountain at the foot of the plaza steps—three Diamond Guards in that sleek blue-grey armor, the kind that never seemed to rust, with silver trimming that caught even the weakest light like a threat. They moved with the precision of a well-oiled machine. Trained silence. Purpose in every footfall.
Jack didn’t look up.
Didn’t need to.
He felt it.
The slow turn of a helmet.
The pause in a step that wasn’t supposed to pause.
That weightless stillness—like being under a hawk’s shadow.
One of them had stopped.
He didn’t turn to confirm it. His shoulders stayed square, pace steady. The same rhythm as every other kid rushing to avoid a late mark.
Just keep walking.
But his skin itched. That ancient, animal part of him tensed like it knew how this story ended. His breath stayed low. Controlled. Fake calm. The kind he’d practiced under flickering lights in a cracked bathroom mirror.
You’re not a threat. Just a student. Just a body passing through.
The moment stretched—rubber-band tight.
Then—
Footsteps resumed.
The sound was faint, boots against stone. The patrol moved on.
But Jack’s pulse didn’t slow.
The helmet had turned. That wasn’t protocol. A head-turn meant recognition. Or suspicion. Or worse—a list.
He swallowed hard, jaw clenched.
Why?
Why you?
Why the glance, the pause, the silence that said more than any weapon could?
It wasn’t just surveillance. It was attention.
And that was always dangerous.
He walked a little faster now, past the plaza steps, eyes scanning the puddles instead of the people. Each reflection stretched and twisted in the fog—buildings bending, lights blurring, faces warping just enough to feel wrong.
For a second, he saw her in the water again.
Not Helen.
The other her.
Eyes wide.
Mouth screaming.
Blood and rain.
Jack blinked and the puddle was just water again.
But his hands had already started shaking.
He jammed them deeper into his pockets and kept walking.
The day had only just begun, but already he felt like he was slipping.
Inside the lecture hall, the air was too warm—stale with recycled oxygen and the quiet choke of academic boredom. Screens lined the far wall, projecting real-time formulas that morphed faster than most students could pretend to follow. A few heads turned when Jack entered, but no one said anything. He slipped into a seat near the back, shoulders hunched, ignoring the faint smudge of ash still clinging to his fingertips.
Dr. Raus was mid-sentence. Something about quantum tethering in nano-rig assemblies. The words passed through Jack like static.
He stared forward. Body here. Mind—elsewhere.
His eyes tracked the rotating schematic on the screen, but none of it stuck. Somewhere between the delta symbols and shifting vectors, he saw Helen again. Too close to that man. Too quiet. A flicker in the mist, a shape his instincts wouldn’t let go.
And then—
Her.
The past, leaking through the cracks.
The scream in the rain.
The face behind it.
His hands, wet and shaking.
Even then. Even before.
He blinked hard. Forced air through his lungs. Tried to anchor himself.
Science. It was supposed to give him that—structure. Certainty. A blueprint for sanity. A place where the rules didn’t lie.
But today, even the math felt like a traitor.
He dropped his pen to the page and scribbled in the margin. Not formulas. Not notes. Just—
A name.
Half-erased.
Smudged.
Then again, slower this time.
Helen.
He stared at it.
This time, he didn’t erase it.
The lecture room had long since emptied. Jack sat alone—surrounded by fading chalk dust and the low hum of tired HVAC vents pushing lukewarm air through metal veins. His body remained still, but his thoughts were shards. Splintered glass caught in a loop.
Outside, the light was dying.
A Diamond Guard patrol marched past the building—blue-grey armor gleaming with cold silver trim. One of them paused beneath the window, visor angled upward.
Staring.
At him.
Too long.
Jack’s fingers curled around the edge of the desk, knuckles pale.
Just another reminder.
He didn’t belong here.
Not with what he carried.
Footsteps echoed down the hallway. Steady. Real.
He didn’t look up until the door creaked open.
“Oi, Rudberg.”
Renjik leaned against the frame, eyebrows raised, hands buried deep in the pockets of his oil-splattered synth-lab coat. The man looked more like a rogue mechanic than an academic supervisor.
“You hiding out in the academic graveyard or having a full-blown existential crisis?”
Jack didn’t answer.
Renjik stepped inside, glancing around like he was casing the place. “Class ended twenty minutes ago. Figured I’d find you here. Brooding like a prototype that failed launch.”
Jack exhaled slowly and stood. “What’s up?”
“Two things,” Renjik said, holding up two grease-stained fingers. “One—don’t skip lab hours again. I’ve got a rep to maintain. Two—your terrain drone? It just made the shortlist for prototype trials at ValeLabs.”
Jack blinked. “Already?”
“Already,” Renjik confirmed. “Turns out slapping an EMP thruster on a mapping unit doesn’t just scream desperation. It screams ‘unorthodox ingenuity.’ Their words, not mine.”
Jack frowned. “It wasn’t meant to—”
“I know. Emergency patch. Stabilizer blown. Creed’s discount parts, yadda yadda. Doesn’t matter. It worked.” Renjik waved him off with a lazy grin. “And now the eggheads love it. Must’ve hit just the right balance of reckless and brilliant.”
He elbowed Jack lightly. “Congrats. You’ve officially glitched your way into greatness. Try not to crash the system.”
A smile ghosted across Jack’s face. Small. Real. “When’s the trial?”
“Seventy-two hours. Which means—” Renjik jabbed a thumb at himself, “—you’re mine for the next three nights. We’re rewiring that EMP feed, cleaning the relay board, and fixing those impulse-control bugs you conveniently forgot existed.”
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to touch it post-submission.”
“You weren’t. Now you are.” Renjik tossed a keycard onto the desk. “Official directive hit this morning. Supervised updates permitted. Guess who’s the lucky supervisor?”
Jack stared at the card. Some of the pressure behind his ribs eased.
He was still standing.
Still building.
“Thanks, Renjik.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” the man grinned. “Wait ‘til you see how little sleep you’re getting.”
Renjik turned to leave, then paused at the door.
“Oh—one more thing,” he said over his shoulder. “Creed’s being watched. Real quiet-like. You didn’t hear it from me.”
Jack stiffened.
Renjik’s tone dropped. “Keep your head down, Rudberg. You’ve got something good in your hands. Don’t let him pull you back into the mud.”
Then he was gone—coat flaring slightly as he vanished down the hall.
Jack looked down at the keycard. Then toward the workshop wing.
For the first time in hours, his hands didn’t shake.
He had something to build.
And this time, it wasn’t just a drone.
The test lab was colder at night.
Jack had the place to himself—just him, a few flickering ceiling panels, and the dull hum of dormant machinery sleeping against the walls. The scent of solder and ozone hung in the air like a second skin. He liked it that way.
It reminded him of home.
Well… not home. But something close enough to pretend.
The drone sat on the central table, stripped to its skeleton. Exposed wires stretched like veins. The new EMP thruster module pulsed blue—soft, rhythmic, like breath drawn in sleep.
Jack rolled up his sleeves.
And got to work.
Tools moved in time with his heartbeat—tak-tak of the torque wrench, the soft hiss of solder kissing copper, and the occasional curse murmured under breath. His hands were sure now. No tremor. No drag. Inside the silence, everything made sense.
Circuits obeyed.
Machines didn’t lie.
He started with the thruster port—rerouting the charge regulator to prevent an oversurge during low-atmo simulation. The patchwork he and Renjik had slapped together before the demo wouldn’t last ten seconds in a real field test.
He muttered at his own handiwork like it owed him an apology, yanking cables free and coaxing resistors into compliance.
Across the table, the drone’s LiDAR array stared at him with its single, glassy eye. Jack cracked it open, wiped the lens housing clean with a silk cloth, then reconnected the signal feeds.
Sixty-five-layer terrain mapping. Real-time textural scanning through rain. Even cliffside stress fractures wouldn’t hide from this thing.
It was beautiful.
And it never should’ve existed.
He gripped a bundled wire tighter than he meant to.
Built from theft. Rushed under pressure. Fueled by anger. It wasn’t invention—it was survival with wires.
He paused.
Fingers hovered above the inner board, just short of connection.
And there it was again.
That memory.
Rain.
Screams.
A body on the pavement. Blood where it shouldn’t have been. Glass crunching under his boots. And her—tears streaked across her face, mouth open in horror.
Like she didn’t recognize him.
Like he’d become something she feared.
His breath caught. The room tilted slightly.
Jack blinked.
Hard.
Shook it off.
Connected the final junction.
The drone gave a soft chime. Lights flickered across its spine in a slow, fluid sequence. Diagnostic passed. No sparks. No alerts. Just a clean hum of life.
He let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
Maybe this time it wouldn’t fall apart.
Maybe he wouldn’t.
From across the lab, the ceiling lights dimmed automatically—night mode kicking in. Jack leaned back, arms crossed, resting against the edge of the workbench. The drone hovered half an inch off its pad, stable and silent.
It was working.
Not perfect.
But enough.
He let himself breathe.
Then—
A sound. Not from the drone.
From the hallway.
That low, rolling hum. Diamond Guards again. He could hear the boots—steel on concrete, measured and mechanical. The quiet hiss of armor flexing. Like they weren’t walking, but sweeping.
He didn’t move. Just listened.
They passed.
Only then did he look back at the drone, lit in steady cobalt glow.
“You’re not just a project now,” Jack said quietly.
“You’re my anchor.”
The old bridge had no name. Not officially.
It was a leftover from before Ironvale's expansion—arched ironwork with weather-worn railings and a view that overlooked a shallow, fog-laced ravine. Students rarely came this far unless they were avoiding something. Jack knew the way by heart now.
The wind tugged at his sleeves as he sat on the edge, legs dangling just above the rusted guard plate. The lighter clicked in his hand, flame catching in a practiced flick. A cigarette met his lips. One drag. Then another.
Smoke curled upward, pale spirals catching moonlight like threads of memory.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Trying not to think. Trying not to remember.
But it never worked.
The night with her always clawed its way back through the cracks.
Screams through rainfall.
Blood on his skin.
The sound of glass—not shattering, but cracking—like something inside was slowly giving way.
He could still see her face. Or—no. He couldn’t anymore. The details were wrong now. Was her hair dark? Her eyes brown? Her voice—sharp or soft?
All he remembered was the way she looked at him in the end.
Like she didn’t see him.
Like she was afraid.
His hand trembled slightly as he brought the cigarette back to his mouth. Ash flaked off the end and drifted down into the dark.
Then—
A silhouette.
In the mist, across the bridge.
A figure, standing still.
Jack stiffened. Blinked.
His heart caught somewhere between hope and dread.
Was it her?
Not Helen. Her.
The one he lost.
He sat frozen as the figure stepped closer—hair catching the wind, coat flicking at the edges like the night itself was trying to pull her away. His throat dried. He crushed the cigarette out on the steel beside him.
The figure kept walking.
Jack rose slowly, the bridge groaning beneath him.
Closer now. Clearer.
No ghost. No hallucination.
It was Helen.
But something in her posture was wrong—drawn in, shoulders tight beneath her coat. Her eyes didn’t search for him. They looked past. Through. Like she was trying not to be seen.
Jack stepped forward, heart thudding.
“Helen?”
She stopped.
Turned, barely. Her eyes flicked to his, then away again.
The silence felt like ice.
He waited for her to say something—anything. But she just turned back toward the path behind her, the one that led away from the bridge. From him.
And that was when something broke.
Not loudly.
Just a quiet no in his chest.
He moved without thinking, cutting the distance between them with quick steps. “Don’t,” he said, voice low but urgent. “Don’t walk away again.”
She paused mid-step.
But didn’t turn.
He took another step, close now. Not touching her. Just there. Holding space.
“You see me,” Jack said. “You know I’m here. So don’t act like we never—like yesterday didn’t—”
Helen slowly turned.
Her eyes glistened, but her jaw was set.
“Why are you here, Jack?” she asked, voice quieter than he expected. “Why this bridge again?”
He didn’t have an answer.
So instead, he said: “Because this is where I go when I don’t want to fall apart.”
The wind picked up.
Helen’s gaze dropped. Her hand clutched the strap of her bag like it grounded her.
She looked like someone standing at the edge of a choice she wasn’t ready to make.
And Jack—for once—didn’t try to force the answer.
He just stood there. Letting the silence stretch between them like a bridge waiting to hold weight again.
They stood in silence, the wind humming between them like a low, aching note stretched across rusted steel.
Helen’s gaze hadn’t left him. Not entirely.
Jack tried not to look at her for too long. But he felt it—the weight of her eyes. The questions swimming behind them. And maybe something else, something he didn’t have the courage to name.
Jack shifted, exhaling sharp through his nose. The collar of his jacket had slipped, and so had his sleeve—just enough for the frayed fabric to expose a thin sliver of his forearm.
Helen’s gaze caught it. Her brows furrowed.
“Jack…”
She reached forward before she even realized she was moving.
He flinched—just slightly—but it was too late.
She had seen it.
Not all of it.
Just a glimpse.
A scar, but unlike any she'd ever seen. Winding. Twisted. Spiraling upward in a pattern that didn’t look like a single cut—but like something had been dragged through him. Forced into him.
The ridges were too deep. The shape too cruel.
It looked like barbed wire had kissed his skin and stayed.
Helen’s hand hovered, fingers trembling. “Is that…?”
Jack yanked the sleeve back down.
“An accident,” he said flatly. Too quickly. “Old.”
But his eyes were far away now, not meeting hers.
And his voice carried the weight of a door being slammed shut.
Helen didn’t press. But she didn’t look away either.
“You’ve got more of those,” she said softly, more observation than accusation.
Jack stayed silent.
And in that silence, she saw everything.
And Jack—who had stood through gale winds and bitter frost and classrooms full of eyes that didn’t see him—couldn’t hold his breath this time.
He looked up at her, and something inside gave way.
He saw her lips move, asking again.
But the voice that came through wasn’t Helen’s.
It was hers.
That night’s echo, slipping through the seams of reality like a knife.
“Are you okay, Jack?”
Her voice, soaked in rain, trembling and stained with blood.
“Why did you—”
Jack blinked rapidly, trying to shake it. But Helen’s face blurred.
The bridge flickered—metal becoming pavement, fog turning into rain, light exploding into red.
The sound of a scream behind his ears.
The look of fear.
Of her.
Of the girl he’d failed.
He stepped back.
“Helen—” his voice was low, rough. “I—I need a minute.”
“Jack?”
She reached for him again.
And again, he recoiled.
Not from her. But from the ghost she wasn’t supposed to wear.
He turned away, gripping the railing like it might keep the pieces from falling.
Helen stood behind him, unmoving.
But she understood something now.
Jack wasn’t just kind.
He was scarred.
Quietly, deeply broken in the way only people who’ve seen too much too young can be.
Just like her.
Neither said anything more.
The bridge just held them there — two mirrors with cracked reflections, afraid to let anyone see what was really behind the glass.
Helen didn’t move.
She couldn’t.
Jack stood with his back to her, shaking so slightly she wasn’t sure if it was the cold or the memory or some storm even deeper.
She could still hear that edge in his voice. The one that sounded like it came from the bottom of something buried.
And that scar—just a sliver of it—had said more than any words ever could.
She’d spent so long running from her own ghosts. From her name. From everything she was supposed to be.
But Jack…
He never once asked her who she was.
He just listened. He saw her.
And now here he was, unraveling in front of her.
Without meaning to. Without trying.
And somehow… it made her want to stay.
She swallowed, chest tight.
He’s broken too.
She didn’t know if it made things easier or harder.
But she knew, without a doubt now, that she felt something. Real. Warm. And terrifying.
Something she hadn’t allowed herself to feel since—
No. No comparisons. This was different.
This was him.
And in that moment, standing on that bridge of rusted bolts and spiraling smoke, Helen Vale realized the most dangerous truth of all:
She was falling for Jack Rudberg.
And she didn’t know how to stop
The wind howled through the rusted lattice of the old bridge, tugging at Helen’s coat, carrying the faintest hum of the city far below. Jack stood a few feet away, his profile lit only by the cherry-red ember of his cigarette. Smoke twisted upward in slow spirals, vanishing into the dusk.
Helen took a step forward.
She didn’t know what she wanted to say—not exactly. But something in her chest tightened until the silence felt unbearable. Words slipped out before she could stop them.
“You don’t always have to carry it alone, Jack.”
He didn’t turn. Didn’t even flinch.
The cigarette hung between his fingers like a lifeline — burning away, second by second. The wind tugged at his coat, then his collar, then his hair.
Jack always kept it long. A curtain, carefully kept. Enough to make him look like the overworked engineer everyone thought he was. But it wasn’t just that.
It was to hide his face.
And now—for one breathless moment—the wind betrayed him.
His hair shifted, and Helen saw him. Really saw him.
The way the city lights caught on the quiet curve of his cheekbone. The lines of exhaustion carved deep into young skin. The fragile, ghostlike beauty behind the shield he always wore. And—
A scar.
Right at the end of his left eyebrow. Clean. Precise. Like something had split him once, and almost healed.
She froze.
That scar felt like a key that didn’t fit any lock. Like a secret that didn’t want to be kept anymore.
The wind settled. His hair fell back into place.
Jack didn’t know she’d seen it. Or maybe he did. Maybe that’s why his voice cracked as it left him.
“I–I am-m sorry,” he murmured, barely above the wind. “I can’t. I don’t deserve to.”
His eyes flicked toward her—just once. Not long enough to truly see her, but just long enough for her to see the storm behind his own.
And then he walked away.
One slow step. Then another.
Smoke trailing behind him like a ghost.
Helen stayed where she was.
Frozen in place, hands curled tight into fists at her sides.
She watched him disappear into the orange haze of the city, swallowed by silence and steel.
And all she could think about was that scar.
The one beneath his eyebrow, like punctuation to a sentence she hadn’t yet heard.
And the one on his forearm — spiraling and raw, like something meant to cage him.
What did he mean?
What didn’t he say?
The bridge creaked under the weight of unspoken things.
The tram tracks hummed faintly behind him, a lonely lullaby of steel and electricity. Jack kept his head low as he stepped off the old bridge, cigarette in hand, shoulders hunched under the weight of everything he didn’t want to name. The city’s glow bled quietly into the mist, painting shadows on the wet pavement.
Then he felt it — that stillness. That pressure.
A presence.
From the alley beside the drainage tunnel, someone stepped out.
Tall. Broad. Confident, like silence owed him something.
No helmet.
But Jack recognized him anyway.
Short-cropped black hair. That tight jaw. Same piercing eyes that stood beside Helen at the freight yard. Closer than they should’ve been.
The man wore a reinforced jacket — navy, with silver-tinted plating at the shoulders. Unmistakably Diamond Guard make. But civilianized. Low-profile. Just enough armor to be dangerous. Just enough casual to vanish again.
They stood facing each other under the pale flicker of a dying streetlamp.
“Walk away,” the man said, voice steady. No modulation. No disguise. “From her.”
Jack’s brows knit slightly.
He didn’t speak at first — just drew in smoke, eyes locked on the man’s. His pulse thudded in his ears like a warning drum.
He looked calm. He wasn't.
“You think I don’t know that?” he muttered, voice low, almost too calm. “You think I haven’t tried?”
The Guard didn’t blink. He took one slow step closer, expression hard as frostbite.
“This isn’t a warning,” he said. “It’s a mercy. Stay away… or someone else will make sure you do.”
Jack let the silence sit.
The cigarette didn’t move. Smoke slid through his teeth like steam off boiling metal.
“Funny,” he said finally, exhaling. “You look like the type who never begs. Guess even you get nervous when it comes to her.”
Something flickered behind the man’s eyes. Not anger. Not pride.
Something colder.
Like calculation. Like regret he wasn’t allowed to show.
But he didn’t move.
Jack turned.
“I’ve been broken before,” he muttered. “All they found were shards that cut back.”
And just like that, he walked off into the haze.
The smoke followed.
So did the weight.
So did the memories that still throbbed just beneath the skin.
Behind him, the Guard lingered — watching, unmoving — until the fog closed around them both.
The lights were off.
Only the pale blink of a surveillance drone passed overhead, casting fractured shadows through the window. The kind that didn’t move like anything living. The kind that stayed.
Jack stood still.
No coat. No boots. Not even socks on the cold floor. Just a heartbeat he didn’t trust and lungs too tired to hold the weight of his own breath.
He hadn’t slept in days.
Hadn’t rested in years.
And tonight, the ghosts returned.
But not the ones with bloodied hands or storm-lit screams. Not the girl in the rain or the red-washed memory of loss.
Tonight, they smiled.
She smiled.
That breathless laugh—the one that came from somewhere deep, always catching him off-guard. The way she used to reach for him without fear. The way her eyes shimmered with belief. Even after everything.
But as the light shifted, the shape of the memory did too.
Now it was Helen.
Her voice. Her stillness. Her warmth.
The way she’d looked at him in the freight yard. Not scared. Not pitying. Just… there. Like she understood, even without knowing the truth.
And that was what broke him.
Because he knew where that road ended. He had walked it. Left blood on the stones. Left a girl shattered behind him.
He collapsed onto the floor, one cheek pressed against the wood.
And then—
A sound.
Not real. Not out loud. But deep, deep inside:
crrrrk.
Like glass cracking. A slow, deliberate fracture. Not an explosion. Not rage.
Just the sound of something long-hardened… softening.
He felt it spread.
That faultline inside his chest.
A hairline fracture running right through the wall he’d built. From the moment she smiled. From the way she stood in the freight yard and whispered that she wanted to disappear.
He should’ve let her.
He should’ve walked away.
But the truth was—he couldn’t.
And that’s why he was scared.
His arms sprawled beside him, slick with sweat. Scars catching moonlight like old secrets whispered too loudly.
Barbed wire spiraled once through his forearms—etched in patterns that looked like thorns curling up dead bark. Unmistakable. Unforgettable.
His shoulders bore the silvery ghosts of blades—thin, cruel slices that healed tight and ugly. His right bicep carried the faint arc of a bullet wound. Another thin scar curled along his ribs, messy and shallow, the kind you patched in an alley, not a clinic.
Even his strength was a scar. Thick arms. Hard chest. A back built for surviving. Not living. Something born out of violence, not training.
He never showed them.
Because the body he walked in wasn’t a temple.
It was a crime scene.
His long, dark hair clung to his cheeks. His green eyes, so sharp and so alive, were hidden under the weight of strands and shadow. And the beard—rough, uneven—made him look older than he was. Like a wall. Like a man who never wanted to be known again.
He’d been called handsome once.
But no compliment could dig past the bones of guilt buried beneath his skin.
And now…
Helen.
He didn’t want her to see any of this. To see him.
But her smile kept showing up in the space where nightmares used to live.
And that terrified him more than anything else.
Because he wasn’t falling.
He was already halfway gone.
He closed his eyes.
Not to sleep.
Just to stop himself from whispering her name.
Because if he fell again—really fell—he didn’t know if he could love without destroying something soft.
And she was soft in all the places he’d long since gone numb.
But still…
That crack in his chest kept spreading.
And in the silence, something tender ached to grow.
He turned his face toward the floor, voice barely more than a breath, and whispered—
“Don’t let me touch her wrong… and shatter another piece of glass trying to glow.”
