Something Between Fire and Ghosts
Prague – Just Past Midnight
The rooftop was quiet now.
Too quiet.
Rhea stood by the railing, phone in her hand, the city glowing below her like a half-buried dream. She replayed the message again.
> Manik: "You're not safe. Not with him."
She closed her eyes.
Lex had gone silent after their last exchange. That haunted look—the one that said you gave yourself to someone else while I was still trying to remember how to find you—it hadn't left his face since she mentioned Manik.
And yet, she couldn't regret it. Not all of it.
Because when she was Muri, running from the Cartwright Group, hiding across Europe with blood in her hair and secrets in her bones—Manik had been there.
Not judging. Just staying.
But Lex—Lex had been something else entirely. The part of her heart they never meant to let live.
She turned to see him now, sitting on the edge of the rooftop, fingers threading through his hair. The Geneva drive was tucked into his coat pocket like a loaded weapon.
"Lex," she said quietly, approaching him.
He didn't look up. "Why didn't you come back?"
She sat beside him. "Because I thought you were gone. Because they told me we'd both forget. And because I was scared that if I saw you again… I'd fall apart."
His jaw tightened. "Did you fall apart with him?"
Rhea didn't answer right away.
Then: "No. I held myself together with him."
Lex finally met her eyes. "But you didn't love him."
She said nothing. And that silence… that silence broke him more than any lie could have.
He rose abruptly, pacing. "I don't know what's real anymore. What's mine. What's Cartwright's. What was programmed. Or edited. Or—"
"Lex—" she started.
He turned, voice ragged. "Do you even want this? Us? Or are you still halfway back in London with him?"
Her voice cracked. "I want the truth. That's what I'm here for. But the truth doesn't come without pain."
He closed the distance between them, slowly, eyes burning.
"And what if the truth is this—" he whispered, "—that I still love you, even if the version of me you knew was stolen?"
Rhea stepped in, closer. Close enough to feel his breath.
"Then I'll fight for that version," she said, voice trembling. "Even if I have to piece him back together from memory."
Their lips met like they remembered how.
Like their bodies had memorized each other while their minds were forced to forget.
And somewhere—far away in India—Sky gasped, chest heaving.
Micah caught him just before he collapsed.
"Sky? Hey—Sky!"
But Sky's eyes had glazed over. His voice dropped an octave, and when he spoke—
It wasn't his voice anymore.
> "Rhea… don't."