Page 38 of Her Soul to Own

She doesn’t look up as I approach, and I almost walk past.

Then, she asks, “Anything interesting in the mail today?”

Her voice slices through the air, casual and bright, like she’s asking about the weather.

I stop walking. My back straightens, my pulse still off-kilter. “Nothing important.”

She looks up.

That smile… It’s not kind, polite, or even curious.

It’s satisfied. Like she already knows what was inside the package.

Her smile deepens. She turns back to her book, but I know she’s watching me beneath her lashes.

The room is silent and heavy. And for the first time in a long time, I feel off-balance. Like maybe I’m not the only one playing this game. Like maybe the girl I’m protecting is the one I need protection from.

I give her one last look before retreating back to my den.

XXX

The studio feed flickers in my peripheral vision like a warning shot. Even before the image sharpens, I know it’s her.

Studio 3—her favorite battlefield.

I set my coffee down, which is already going cold, and lean forward. The camera adjusts, grainy in the dim lighting, but clear enough to show Lyra in motion.

She’s barefoot, her hair tied in a haphazard knot that’s barely holding, and a long tank top clinging to her like a second skin. Paint is everywhere—across her hands, her arms, her collarbone. And a smudge streaks across her throat like a bruise made by color.

She’s painting like she’s trying to win a war against herself.

Music blasts through the feed, distorted rock with violent undertones. The kind of sound you use to drown out memories. Her body moves with every strike of the brush, sharp and erratic,like she’s not just applying color but tearing something out of herself with every stroke.

Reds. Blacks. Electric blues. The canvas looks like it’s bleeding.

She’s alive in there, feral and untamed. She paints the way most people scream. And for a moment, I forget to breathe.

Because this side of her is different. It’s not the same coiled tension she walks around with. There’s something almost free in her tonight. Something unburdened. Or worse, determined.

The camera angle catches her mid-laugh, her lips parted, chin tipped up, and eyes gleaming with something I don’t recognize. It doesn’t look like rebellion anymore.

It looks like pure strategy. I narrow my eyes.What the hell are you planning?

Just then, my phone buzzes. The screen lights up with a number I haven’t seen in years. It’s unlisted.

But I know it like the barrel of my sidearm.

Marcus Bellamy.

The man who taught me how to shoot, lie, and disappear. The man who once dragged me out of a blown op in Prague with a shattered shoulder and a kill list five names deep.

If Marcus is calling, it means something’s bleeding.

I answer, “Creed.”

His voice crackles through the speaker like sandpaper. “Still playing house?”

“Still creeping around encrypted networks like a ghost?” I throw back at him.

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