------------------------------------------
They say the dead don't dream.
That's a lie.
Because I do.
I dream of the lilies.
Not the living kind, the ones in vases next to fresh graves. No. Mine were dead long before they touched the coffin. Wilted white petals. Brown edges. A sour-sweet smell thick enough to crawl down your throat. I remember lying beneath them, trying not to breathe, as if that would make the pain stop.
It didn't.
There's a peculiar ache in waking up in your own grave. The earth doesn't feel cold the way people imagine it's just heavy. Damp. Cramped. And humiliating.
But I didn't come back to tell you about the dirt in my mouth.
I came back for what was taken.
Three years ago, I had a name. A job. A lover I would've slit my own wrist for.
Now? I'm not sure what I am.
My name was Leila Cross.
I was 29. A journalist. Sharp-tongued, stubborn, and addicted to the truth.
And it got me killed.
The night it happened the night everything cracked open like a rotten fruit I was wearing red. Not because I wanted to be seen, but because I thought it might give me courage. Blood-colored lipstick. A silk blouse I borrowed from my sister. I looked like I was going on a date.
Funny, right?
Turns out, I was.
Just not the kind you come back from.
I remember sitting in my car across the street from his apartment.
Julian Ward my editor, my lover, and the man who would later carve a slit beneath my ribs and leave me for the rats.
I remember the way he kissed me that night soft, hesitant. Like he wanted to ask forgiveness for something. I should've known. I should've known.
"You sure you want to run this story?" he asked.
"It's what I do," I said.
And it was. I dug into dirt. I chased shadows. And I didn't stop just because the people in my story wore thousand-dollar suits and drank whiskey that tasted like silence.
But that night, when I left his apartment, there was something in the air like static clinging to skin before lightning strikes.
I never made it home.
The first blow was behind my ear. A metal pipe, maybe. Something blunt.
The next thing I remember was blood. Dripping into my eye. Filling my mouth.
Someone laughing.
And then… his voice.
"You shouldn't have opened the file, Leila."
Julian.
It was always him.
Now, I wake up every morning with that name on my tongue like a bad taste. Julian.
The man I loved.
The man who stood over my bleeding body and watched the light die in my eyes.
I should hate him.
But hate doesn't cover it.
Hate is too easy. Too small. What I feel is something worse. Something ancient and bottomless. It has no name, only hunger.
And now that I'm back, it's starving.
I live in the ruins of what used to be someone else's life. The motel I hide in smells like mildew and broken dreams. The wallpaper's peeling, the air conditioner's dead, and the shower screams when it runs but it's mine.
At least for now.
They didn't expect me to survive.
Technically, I didn't. The death certificate says Leila Rose Cross. Cause: blunt force trauma and exsanguination. Unidentified suspect.
They never even gave me a funeral. Just a shallow hole and some forged paperwork.
I was easy to disappear.
But the mistake they made?
They didn't burn me.
And something about me refused to rot.
The mirror in the motel bathroom doesn't lie.
My face is mine… mostly. The scar beneath my left eye is new. My skin is paler. My eyes darker. Like something crawled into me in that grave and didn't quite leave.
Sometimes, I wonder if I really am Leila anymore. Or if I'm just the shadow of the girl who died that night. A ghost with unfinished business and a heartbeat that thuds like war drums.
I sleep with a knife under my pillow now.
I dream of the names. The ones who helped him. The ones who knew and said nothing. I keep a list taped to the back of my closet door.
Julian Ward Miriam Crest Detective Tomley Eric Vale Cynthia Marks Unknown #6
The last one still has no name. But I'll find them.
And when I do, I'll give them the same mercy they gave me.
None.
Tonight, I return to the city.
I've spent the last eight months underground, healing, watching, remembering.
It's time.
I slide into jeans and a hoodie. Braid my hair tight. Tuck the scar beneath foundation. To the world, I'll look like any other tired woman on a bus, invisible, forgettable.
Perfect.
Julian still runs the paper. He still breathes. He still smiles on TV interviews and talks about "protecting the truth."
I wonder if he sleeps at night.
If he dreams of lilies.
Because I do.
Every. Single. Night.
By the time I reach the city, the sun's choking on the horizon.
I sit in the back of the bus, hands cold, heart steady. I watch people scroll through their phones. Laugh. Live. They don't know there's a dead woman riding among them.
My stop comes. I step off. My boots hit the pavement with purpose.
Across the street, framed in golden light like some divine lie, stands the towering glass building of The Haven Post. Our old office.
His kingdom.
The last place I was seen alive.
I smile.
It's time to say hello.
And as I step onto the sidewalk, I see him.
Julian Ward.
Laughing.
Holding hands with my sister