Page 38 of Wraith

And I was the only one who could see them.

I felt my stomachdrop into freefall.

My hand moved before I could think, fumbling for my phone in my pocket, my fingers numb as I unlocked the screen. If this was real—if I wasn’t losing my fucking mind—then I needed proof.I needed to see it.

With a deep, shaky breath, I lifted the camera, angling it toward the back pews where they were tangled together, bodies pressed too close, too wrong. My thumb hovered over the shutter button for only a second before I forced myself to snap the photo.

The screen flashed. The image appeared.

My pulse pounded as I stared at it.It wasn’t as clear as what I saw with my own eyes.The details blurred, as if the camera lens struggled to capture something it wasn’t meant to see. But the outlines werethere.

Three figures.

Lucian’s slumped form. Lily’s shape draped over him. And behind them—Ciaran.

His face.Crisp. Sharp. Defined.

And his expression—pleading.

My breath hitched, ice crawling down my spine. He wasn’t looking at Lily. He wasn’t looking at Lucian.

He was looking at me.

Begging.

My hands trembled, grip tightening around my phone as I looked up, ready to confront the horror unfolding before me. But?—

They were gone.

The pew was empty.

The air around me was still.

I swallowed hard, my vision swimming. My fingers scrambled to open the photo again, needing—desperate—to confirm what I saw. But as I stared at the screen, the longer I looked, the fainter the outlines became. Like they were fading.

But they didn't disappear completely.

Even as the image blurred at the edges, even as the details softened like a half-forgotten dream,Ciaran’s face remained.

Sharp. Defined.Still pleading.

No matter how much I blinked, how much my mind screamed at me that this wasn't possible, the image on my screen remainedundeniable proof.

They were here.

And I was the only one who knew it.

Twenty-Seven

The moment I saw Kael,I knew I was about to sound like a lunatic.

He was standing outside the chapel, a cigarette dangling between his fingers, his expression carved from stone. The others were still inside, murmuring in hushed tones about Emma’s arrest, but Kael had removed himself from the crowd. He’d always been like that—choosing distance over confrontation, even when the world was falling apart around him.

And right now, I needed him to confront something impossible.

My throat became so dry as I approached, my phone clutched tight in my palm. The image was still there. Ciaran’s pleading face. The distorted outlines of Lucian and Lily. Proof that I wasn’t losing my mind.

But how the hell was I supposed to explain this?

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