The door slammed behind her, the sound sharp enough to cleave the night.
For a second, Alexander didn't move. The imprint of her wrist still burned against his palm — a pulse, a tremor, a memory.
Selene Brooks.
Every part of him wanted to believe it was coincidence, or delusion, or a cruel trick of the past refusing to die. But he knew better. He'd looked into her eyes. He'd heard his name leave her lips.
It was her.
And she'd run again.
He followed.
The corridor outside the ballroom was nearly empty — a long stretch of marble and soft lighting leading toward the elevators. Her footsteps echoed ahead, sharp and steady, though he could sense the fracture in their rhythm.
"Selene."
She didn't stop.
He quickened his pace. "You can't keep walking away."
Her answer floated back, brittle as glass. "Watch me."
He reached her before she reached the elevator, stepping in front of her, forcing her to halt.
"Move," she said, voice low but steady.
"No."
"Then I'll go around you."
"Try."
Her eyes flashed — the same defiant fire he remembered from the nights she'd tested his every rule just to see how far he'd go. It stirred something too familiar, too dangerous.
She stepped sideways. He matched her.
The air between them thickened — a silence neither could disguise as indifference.
Finally, she exhaled sharply, the edge of her control fraying. "What do you want, Alexander?"
He studied her face, searching for the woman who had once whispered his name like prayer and curse in the same breath. But she wasn't that woman anymore.
"I want the truth," he said.
"You got it years ago."
"No," he said, quietly but with steel. "I got your silence."
She laughed then — soft, bitter. "You don't deserve my truth."
"Deserve has nothing to do with it."
"Then what does?"
"Closure."
Her expression turned cold. "You? Seeking closure?"
"I don't like unfinished business."
"Then you should've burned it the first time you touched it."
The words hit him square in the chest. He almost smiled at the irony — she'd always known how to aim where it hurt.
But her voice shook slightly at the end. He heard it, the faint crack beneath the defiance.
He stepped closer. "You're trembling."
Her chin lifted. "From disgust."
"Liar."
She took another step back, but the wall stopped her.
He didn't touch her, not yet. But the nearness was its own kind of violence — two heartbeats caught in a shared trap of history.
"Let me pass," she said, voice clipped.
"Not until you tell me where you went."
She folded her arms. "You don't own my past."
"I thought I did once," he said quietly. "Apparently, I was wrong."
"You were."
He leaned closer, his shadow falling across her. "Then enlighten me. Why did you leave without a word? No message. No trace. Do you know what I thought when I—" He stopped himself, jaw locking.
When he what? When he realized she'd vanished and he couldn't stop searching for her face in strangers for months after? He wasn't about to hand her that power again.
"Never mind," he muttered.
Her eyes softened for half a second, as though she caught the thing he didn't say. Then they hardened again. "You thought I was replaceable. You proved it."
"Did I?"
"You moved on."
He stared at her, a small, humorless laugh escaping. "You think what I did with anyone after you qualifies as moving on?"
Her expression faltered.
He took another step forward. The scent of her skin — warm silk and jasmine — struck him again, pulling at memory.
"You left, Selene. I didn't let you go."
"You never had to."
"Then why does it feel like you took something when you did?"
She turned her face away, eyes glinting in the low light. "You mistake possession for connection."
"And you mistake denial for strength."
"Stop analyzing me."
"Then stop running."
"I'm not running," she whispered.
"Then look at me."
She didn't.
The silence that followed was deafening — the kind that vibrated with all the things they'd done without words before.
He raised a hand, meaning to brush her hair away, to make her look at him. But the moment his fingers grazed her jaw, she flinched — not from fear, but from recognition.
The world contracted to that single point of contact.
Her pulse leapt. His breath caught.
He hadn't meant to touch her like that, but once he did, he couldn't stop. His thumb moved slightly, tracing the edge of her cheekbone — remembering skin he'd once memorized by heart.
"Don't," she said softly, the plea threaded with something fragile.
He stepped back, jaw tight, forcing himself to obey.
The absence of her heat was immediate. It left him cold.
For a long moment, they simply breathed the same air.
Then she spoke, quieter now. "You always think touch solves things."
"It doesn't."
"Then why do you keep trying?"
"Because it reminds me you're real."
She closed her eyes briefly, shaking her head. "I stopped being yours the moment I walked out that door."
His voice dropped. "Then why does it still feel like you belong here?"
"Because you're confusing guilt with desire."
"Maybe," he said, "but I'm not the only one feeling it."
Her silence was answer enough.
The elevator chimed at the end of the hall. She used the sound as escape — breaking from him, striding toward it, every motion deliberate.
He followed again, unable not to.
When the doors slid open, she stepped inside and turned sharply. "Don't," she said, voice firm now. "Stay."
He should have.
Instead, he stepped in beside her.
The doors closed.
And the world shrank to four mirrored walls and too much history.
Neither spoke at first. The faint hum of descent filled the silence, broken only by the rhythm of breath.
He glanced sideways. She was looking straight ahead, shoulders stiff, hands clenched at her sides.
Her reflection in the glass trembled slightly, though her face did not.
"Afraid?" he asked quietly.
She turned her head just enough to meet his gaze in the reflection. "Of you? No."
He smiled faintly. "You should be."
"Then you haven't changed at all."
"Neither have you."
Her breath caught, betraying her.
The tension coiled tighter, until even the air felt heavy enough to bruise.
Halfway down, the elevator jolted slightly — a pause in its descent.
Instinctively, his hand went to her arm.
"Easy," he said.
"I'm fine."
He didn't remove his hand.
She stared at it, then at him. "You're doing it again."
"What?"
"Trying to make control look like care."
He let go, slow and deliberate. "Maybe I don't know the difference anymore."
"Then that's your problem, not mine."
"Is it?"
Her lips parted — a retort ready — but the elevator resumed its motion with a soft hum, silencing them both.
When the doors opened to the lobby, she stepped out first, gathering her composure like armor.
He followed, a step behind, unable to stop tracking her movement — the way her shoulders squared, the precision of each breath.
She paused near the exit, turning to face him one last time.
"You got what you wanted," she said. "You saw me. You remembered. Now forget again."
"Is that what you've done?"
Her voice wavered, barely audible. "I've tried."
He took one slow step closer. "Then keep trying."
Her eyes shimmered — not with tears, but fury, pain, something old and unhealed.
"Goodnight, Alexander," she said, and walked into the rain.
He didn't follow this time.
He just stood there, watching her disappear into the blur of glass and stormlight, until the reflection of her silhouette dissolved completely.
The silence she left behind pressed against him — thick, suffocating.
He looked down at his hand, at the faint trace of warmth her skin had left there, and closed his fist around it as though he could trap the echo.
He had remembered her tonight — every sound, every word, every defiance.
But she had left again.
And Alexander Knight was not a man built to lose the same thing twice.
He watches her vanish into the rain, the echo of her heartbeat still in his hand. The restraint in him begins to crack — this time, he won't let her disappear without knowing why.