The city slid past the bus window in smeared bands of color—gray buildings, red brake lights, and a pale winter sky. Each bump in the road made my borrowed bones rattle, like the body and I were still getting used to each other.
Lena sat beside me, one earbud dangling, fingers drumming against her knee. She kept looking at me, then away, then back again, as if she was afraid I might vanish if she blinked too long.
"You're quiet," she said finally.
I'd been counting breaths just to prove I could. "I'm thinking."
"That's new." Her lips twitched, like the ghost of a smile that had died young. "About what?"
About the fact that I was not supposed to be here—not like this. About the ticking I could feel behind my ribs, counting down twenty‑four stolen hours. About the other presence pacing in the back of my head like a caged dog.
"About you," I said instead.
She snorted softly. "Liar. You're thinking about him."
There it was again—that word. Him. The one we were apparently going to ruin.
She turned so she could see me fully, one knee pulled onto the seat. "Do you actually remember why we're doing this," she asked, "or is this all one big improv routine?"
The correct answer rose to my tongue before I could stop it.
"Because I chose them over you," I heard myself say. "Because when the company offered a 'lifetime position' with benefits, I signed away everything for a higher floor and a nicer coffin."
The words tasted bitter and familiar and not mine.
Lena's eyes narrowed. "Okay. That's a start."
I clamped my mouth shut, stunned. Those hadn't come from me. They'd come from somewhere behind my teeth, from someone whose regrets had soaked into the meat I occupied.
Inside, in the dark space where my thoughts echoed too loudly, something laughed without humor.
"You really can't help yourself," a rough voice said. Using my lines already?
I went still.
You're the host, I thought—or maybe spoke; it was hard to tell. Subject 6‑1‑0‑9‑A.
The voice hissed. Don't call me that. I have a name.
It uncoiled like smoke, taking shape in my mind's eye: a man in his forties with the same tired brown eyes I'd seen in the mirror earlier, hair thinning at the temples, shoulders stooped from too many compromises. He looked like every overworked father in a cheap suit, except his gaze glowed with something sharper than exhaustion.
Elias Ward, he said. Your owner.
A shiver ran through our shared spine. Out loud, I managed, "Lena, how long until we get there?"
She glanced at the route map overhead. "Two more stops. Don't change the subject, Dad."
Dad.
The word struck me with the force of a physical blow. It didn't belong to me, but it wrapped itself around my borrowed heart anyway.
"She's not talking to you," Elias snapped. She's talking to me. Get out of the way.
Pressure built behind my eyes, a tide pushing forward. My fingers tightened on the metal pole in front of me. The world blurred at the edges.
"Hey." Lena's hand brushed my arm. "Are you okay?"
"I'm—"
The word twisted as Elias shoved.
Suddenly my own thoughts were shunted to the side, as if someone had yanked the steering wheel out of my hands. My grip on the pole reversed; my shoulders squared in a way they hadn't before. The line of my jaw hardened.
The body smiled—a tight, practiced expression I hadn't learned yet.
"I'm fine," Elias said, using my mouth.
Hearing my voice with someone else inside it made nausea coil in my gut. I pushed back, but I might as well have been kicking fog. The muscles didn't answer me. They answered him.
Lena noticed the change immediately. Her gaze sharpened. "There he is."
"Here I am," Elias agreed. "Are you still playing angry, kiddo, or did you get that out of your system already?"
Her fingers withdrew from my sleeve like she'd been burned. "Don't call me that."
"What, kiddo?" He shrugged my shoulders. "You liked it when you were five."
"I liked a lot of things when I was five," she snapped. "Like believing you'd keep your promises."
Her voice was loud enough that a few passengers glanced over. Somewhere deep inside, I flinched. Elias only leaned back, completely at ease in the body he had not built.
"Promises are complicated," he said. "Contracts are simpler."
Lena laughed without humor. "Right. Let's talk about contracts."
The bus hit a pothole; our stomach lurched. The metal pole bit into my palm. For an instant, Elias's grip loosened.
I shoved.
Control snapped back into place like a rubber band. My body jerked; Lena reached out instinctively, steadying me.
"Dad?"
I sucked in a breath that felt like surfacing. "I'm here," I said, my voice thinner, more bewildered. "Sorry. Just… dizzy."
She frowned. "You're doing that a lot."
Doing what? Switching? Fading? Being two people in one body when the afterlife rules clearly said there should only be one?
You're welcome. Elias growled in the back of my mind. Without me, you'd be a corpse in a closet. Don't forget who signed the paperwork that lets you exist at all.
"I didn't exist when you signed it," I pointed out.
Exactly. You owe me everything.
The bus slowed. "This is us," Lena said, standing.
Through the window, a tower of glass and steel rose into the sky, its mirrored surface reflecting a thin, washed-out version of the city. Letters were bolted in neat silver along the top third of the building:
CÆLUM GLOBAL SOLUTIONS.
The name meant nothing to me, but the instant I saw it, a hot spike of hatred pierced through my chest.
Not mine.
Elias's.
My vision ghosted for a second—a flash overlayed on reality. The same building at night, the glass spattered with rain, my—his—reflection staring back. A phone pressed to his ear. A voice on the other end said, "It's a lifetime opportunity, Mr. Ward. All you have to do is sign."
The bus doors hissed open.
"Come on," Lena said.
We stepped out into wind that smelled of exhaust and burned coffee. The plaza in front of the tower was all polished stone and carefully placed greenery. Too clean, like the Bureau ceiling. Too sharp.
Lena's jaw clenched. "You remember this place, right?"
Another image slammed into us: a smaller version of her standing here with a school project cradled in her arms, waiting for a father who never came down.
More memories, from different angles, pushed against that one—other people's last looks at the same tower: a security guard watching paramedics wheel out a body, an intern lighting a cigarette with shaking hands, a janitor staring at a smear on the floor that looked too much like blood.
None of them belonged to Elias. None of them belonged to me.
They all settled in anyway.
What is this building to you, I asked him silently, besides an employer?
His response was a low growl. This is the place where I sold my soul in installments. Where I traded evenings with my daughter for overtime. Where they told me I could buy my way out of death if I helped them sell the same lie to everyone else.
Lena walked ahead, shoulders stiff, weaving through suits and heels. People flowed around her like she didn't exist. She moved like someone who had been here before and been ignored before and hated every second of it.
I hurried to keep up.
"There he is," she murmured.
Through the lobby's glass, a man in a perfect navy suit strode across marble floors, flanked by an assistant. His hair was silver at the temples, his smile expensive, and his hand gestures wide and practiced.
The spike of hatred in my ribs sharpened.
That's him. Elias whispered. Gabriel Caelum. CEO. Your 'lifetime opportunity' salesman.
The air around us seemed to thicken. My borrowed palms dampened.
"What are we doing, exactly