Chapter 1 - The First Twitch"Because when you're invisible," Willa whispered into the silent, dim-lit ICU room, "nobody expects you to have a voice. Sterling thinks he bought a ghost. Whitfield thinks he bought a scapegoat. But they forgot one thing."
That was when the impossible happened.
Willa, preparing to pull the heavy armchair back into position, felt a sudden, sharp draft. She paused. The heavy oak door of the master suite was securely latched. The HVAC vent overhead was silent.
She turned her gaze back to the bed.
Everett Kane’s hand, which had lain flat and lifeless across the white sheet for eight agonizing months, twitched.
Willa froze. Her breath caught in her throat. She stepped closer, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Slowly, agonizingly, the thick, calloused fingers of his right hand curled inward.
Then, his fingers closed.
They locked tight around Willa’s hand, gripping her wrist with a sudden, bone-crushing strength that defied every neurological report Dr. Whitfield had filed.
Willa gasped, looking down. Everett’s eyes remained shut beneath their heavy lids, his face a mask of pale marble. But the grip on her hand was real. It was fierce. It was alive.
"I know," Everett’s voice didn't come from his mouth—it echoed entirely inside Willa’s mind, a phantom resonance born from the depth of his sheer will. But then, a low, gravelly vibration tore through his throat, raw from months of disuse.
"Don't... let them... see," Everett rasped, the sound like dry leaves scraping across concrete.
May you like
Before Willa could answer, the sharp, rhythmic beep of the hallway security monitor chimed. Heavy footsteps echoed up the grand staircase. Someone was coming.
Willa tried to pull her hand back, but Everett's grip tightened further, a silent plea written in the tendon and bone of a man who refused to die quietly.
