Chapter 2 002
Rayna
I didn’t sleep. Not for a second, and no matter how hard I tried.
The card lay on the table like a loaded gun, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw that name in crimson ink. Zero.
Instead of sleeping, I poured myself another drink and sat by the fridge. My fridge door wasn’t covered in magnets like most people’s. Just one photo taped crookedly in the middle. Lila.
I touched the edge of the picture, fingers trembling.
“You see this crap, Lil?” I muttered. “They think I’ll just… show up. Like it’s some party.”
Her smile stared back at me, warm and sharp at the same time. She’d hated having her picture taken, always ducking out of frame, but this one I’d snapped fast. She’d been laughing at me for burning dinner. It wasn’t even flattering — her hair was a mess, makeup smudged — but it was her.
“God, I miss you,” I whispered.
The silence pressed against me. Too thick. Too loud.
And just like that, I was back there again.
The morgue.
The smell of bleach and cold steel.
I remember pounding on the counter. “Where is she? Where the hell is she?”
The man in the wrinkled white coat had flinched at my tone. “Miss Vale—please. Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I’d snapped, slamming my fist again. “Where’s my sister?”
He’d exchanged a look with the woman beside him, then finally motioned me through the door. The walls were too white, too clean, like they wanted to erase the truth. But the truth had been waiting in one of those drawers.
“You should prepare yourself,” he’d said, quietly.
“No,” I whispered back then, shaking my head. “I don’t prepare. I see.”
When he pulled the drawer open and lifted the sheet, my lungs stopped working.
Her face.
Her lips blue, her skin pale. But it was her. My Lila.
I’d staggered forward, clutching the edge of the drawer. “What happened to her?”
The coroner cleared his throat. “Overdose.”
“No,” I spat instantly. “No, that’s a lie.”
“It’s what the report says,” he replied, eyes darting away.
“Look at her!” I screamed. “Look at her neck!”
His mouth pressed into a thin line, but he didn’t answer.
There’d been a bruise. Fingers wrapped like a necklace just below her jaw. Thin. Deliberate.
“That’s not from a needle,” I whispered.
“Miss Vale—”
“Say it!” I demanded. “Say she didn’t overdose!”
But he just shook his head, slid the sheet back over her, and pushed the drawer shut.
Like she was nothing but evidence.
I’d screamed until my throat tore. I remember kicking the drawer, sobbing into my fists, while that useless man tried to steady me.
And now, sitting in my apartment, years later, I could still hear myself. The sound of my own grief echoing back.
“An overdose, my ass,” I whispered bitterly. I pressed my forehead against the fridge, against her smiling photo. “They covered it up, Lil. They buried you with lies.”
A tear slipped down, landing on the photo, and I wiped it away fast. I didn’t like crying. It made me feel weak. But rage? Rage I could handle.
“You were careful,” I muttered. “You hated even being near that stuff. Remember Marcus? That idiot you dumped the second you found his stash?”
My voice cracked. I squeezed my eyes shut. “You didn’t deserve this. Not you.”
The room was too quiet again, so I let myself pretend. Pretend she could still answer.
“Don’t get so serious, Rayna,” her voice said in my head, teasing, soft.
I let out a choked laugh. “Easy for you to say.”
I traced her smile in the photo, my finger shaking. “I swear I’ll find out who did this, Lil. I’ll make them talk. I’ll make them pay.”
My phone buzzed on the table. I jumped, heart racing, and snatched it up.
Another text.
From the same unknown number.
We know what you lost.
We know who took her.
My throat closed up. I typed fast, hands unsteady. Who?
The dots blinked. Then stopped.
No answer.
“Cowards,” I hissed, tossing the phone aside.
But my heart wouldn’t settle.
Because whoever was on the other side of that line — they weren’t bluffing.
They knew.
I paced the room, restless, muttering under my breath like I could bargain with her ghost. “Do I go, Lila? Do I step into this thing? You’d call me crazy. You’d tell me to walk away.”
In my head, she laughed, the way she used to. “When have you ever listened to me?”
That tore a bitter laugh out of me. True enough. I never listened.
I grabbed my jacket and slid the photo of her into the pocket. I needed her close. I needed her reminder when I walked into hell.
“This is for you,” I said softly. “If they think I’ll play their game… fine. I’ll play. But I won’t play to win.”
I pressed the invitation card flat on the table. Midnight. Tomorrow. The Orpheus Hotel.
“I’ll play to burn it down.”
The words hung in the air like a vow.
Then — a sound.
A scrape.
I turned. The invitation card had moved. I hadn’t touched it.
It now leaned neatly against the photo of Lila, as though someone invisible had propped it there.
My stomach dropped. My knife was still on the counter, too far.
I backed up slowly, heart hammering in my chest.
And then I saw it — red ink bleeding across the surface of the black card, letters forming as if written by an unseen hand.
We remember her.
