Selene’s POV

She was already there when I stepped into the alley behind the club—leaning against the brick wall like she belonged to the night.

Rain had just stopped. The air still buzzed with that metallic hum it leaves behind, and my heels clicked against the wet pavement like a slow metronome.

I would’ve ignored her, like I ignore most ghosts. Paris is full of them—young, angry things clinging to their edges. But something about her didn’t let me pass. She didn’t flinch when I looked her way. Didn’t shrink, didn’t pretend to be invisible. She just stood there, eyes fixed on nothing and everything, a cigarette burning low between her fingers.

She couldn’t have been more than seventeen.

Her clothes were cheap and blood-speckled. Her lip was cracked, a raw line against too-pale skin. The way she stood—one shoulder dipped, jaw tight—told me she'd just fought. Or maybe she was still fighting, just quieter now.

I paused a few feet away.

“You’re bleeding,” I said.

She looked at me then. Slowly. Eyes like frostbite. Empty in that terrifying kind of way that means something once lived there, and died.

She didn’t answer. Just flicked ash onto the ground.

There was a rhythm to her silence. Not absence—presence. Heavy, deliberate. She wasn’t mute. She was choosing not to speak. To deny the world her voice like it didn’t deserve it.

I took a step closer, half-lost in my own curiosity. Her eyes tracked me but gave nothing. No fear. No recognition. No performance.

I’m used to being stared at like a stage. A mirror. A threat. But she didn’t look at me. She looked through me, and somehow still saw more than most ever do.

I reached into my coat pocket—pulled out a clean handkerchief, black silk. Offered it without a word.

She looked down at it. Then at me.

Her lips pressed into a thin line. Not in refusal—more like restraint. She took it. Carefully. As if touching softness might make her break.

And that was it. No thank you. No name. Just a single nod before she turned, walked down the alley, and disappeared into the dark like she was part of it.

I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath until she was gone.

She didn’t say a single word. But I haven’t stopped thinking about her since