Page 2 of Ashes to Ashes

Nothing.

But my skin dances with awareness, that sixth sense that’s kept me alive when reality says I should have died a thousand times.

The forest watches me.

I would swear to it on every weapon I’ve ever carried.

I round a massive oak that—I swear to whatever gods are listening—wasn’t blocking my path seconds ago.

The world stops.

My lungs seize mid-breath while my vision tunnels, narrowing to a single impossible point. My heart stumbles over its rhythm—thud-pause-thud-thud-pause—as something buried in my marrow identifies her before my conscious mind can process what stands before me.

She’snothuman.

Her skin gleams like moonlight captured in water. When she moves, the shadows bend. Follow her.

Moonlight tracks her like a searchlight, leaving everything else in impossible darkness.

Eyes green as forest depths with no whites at all stare into mine—not looking,seeing. Peeling away layers I didn’t know existed, reaching past skin and muscle and bone to something I’ve spent a lifetime burying.

She smells like petrichor and starlight—like the air right before a storm breaks, electric and heavy and inevitable.

My lungs burn for air I’ve forgotten how to take, throat closing so tight not even a whimper escapes. Black spots bloom across my vision, reality tunneling inward as oxygen depletes.

“Ashlynne,” she whispers.

The name—both mine and not mine—vibrates not through air but through bone. A name I’ve never heard spoken aloud but that resonates through my entire being like a missing puzzle piece suddenly slotting into place.

I blink—just once—and she vanishes.

“No, wait—” The words tear from my throat. Desperate. Feral. My nails dig into bark until they bend backward, pain lancing up my fingertips as adrenaline blooms across my tongue, metallic and sharp.

My heart slams against my ribs. This isn’t like the glimpses I’ve had before. Faces in trees that could be dismissed. Whispers in the wind that could be denied.

This was real. I swear it.

The copper tang of blood floods my mouth—I’ve bitten through the inside of my cheek, tissue yielding to the need to feel something real.

“Get it together, Morgan,” I whisper. The name the government gave me when they found me—a lost child with no memory and no identity beyond the faded letters stitched into my torn jacket.

The adoption papers say I was approximately three years old.

Just another orphan from nowhere. I force myself forward, tracking the signal from the research Dr. Litvak stole.

The signal leads to a clearing where moonlight pools like liquid silver, too bright, almost tangible. Trees lean away from the center as if afraid. At the clearing’s heart stands a stone altar with symbols carved so deep they drink moonlight. They shouldn’t make sense—but something beneath my consciousness recognizes them.

Kneeling before it, Dr. Litvak. His eyes stop me—too bright, unblinking, pupils blown until only the thinnest rim of iris remains. His movements jerk like badly edited film.

His hands hover over something small and bright that pulses with a heartbeat. The stolen files lie open beside him, pages ruffling in a breeze that doesn’t touch my skin. He chants in a cadence that tugs at something buried deep inside me—a rhythm I shouldn’t recognize but do.

“Target acquired,” I whisper, voice breaking as his chanting makes my skin sing. “Moving in.”

“Copy that,” Davis replies through static. The team calls me Ghost—not for pale skin, but for how I move through these woods like I own them.

Three steps away. Two. One.

I press my weapon to the base of Litvak’s skull, the metal burning cold against my palm. “Hands where I can see them, Doctor.”

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