CHAPTER EIGHT:THE GIRL WITH EYES LIKE SECRETS
[Some wars begin with silence, not swords.]
After Forged contract with Icarus, the door opened again, and Cipher stood outside. Aspen stepped out, stretching like a cat waking from a nap.
Cipher narrowed her eyes. "You made a deal?"
"I made a choice," Aspen replied, already walking past her.
Then, with a tilt of her head: "You'll get used to me, darling. Zareina will be here soon."
Cipher crossed her arms. "And then what?"
Aspen paused at the hallway's end, eyes glowing faint red.
"Then everything starts."
--------
Next day
The dawn bled pale light through a bruised sky. Rain hadn't yet begun, but the air was heavy with the promise of it. Zareina stood before her mirror, staring at herself—not out of vanity, but precision. The mismatched eyes, vivid and unnatural, stared back.
One gold. One violet.
Too loud. Too telling.
She slid in the colored lenses, dimming the hues to warm brown. The mask came next—smooth, matte black. Followed by the hoodie, drawn low like a curtain. Then the thick glasses. The final layer of her self-imposed silence.
Classes.
She had nearly forgotten.
Even war-touched ghosts have timetables.
She no longer looked like Nyx Reign.
She looked like Zareina the person she needed to be. The person that outside knows.
She left without breakfast. Her apartment room remained untouched—no personal decorations, no memories hung on walls. Just weapons disguised as necessities and a secret room.
Rain hadn't fallen yet, but the clouds held it like a promise. Zareina walked across campus as though the weight of the world didn't exist on her shoulders.
Yet it did. Wrapped in a silky black cloth inside her backpack: the seal.
Her fingers brushed it once, feeling the chilled metal through fabric. Like touching fate's throat.
In the crowd, no one looked twice at her. But she noticed everything.
•A shift in footsteps behind her.
•A glint from a rooftop.
•The same black van parked outside campus for three days now.
She didn't need to turn her head to know someone was watching.
Someone skilled. Someone... quiet.
Her pace didn't change.
But her mind sharpened like the edge of a blade.
She moved through the city like fog, unseen and untouched, until she reached the campus. The crowd didn't glance twice—no one ever did. No one but one.
----------
Inside the van,
Cipher—sat in silence. Monitors surrounded her, each screen feeding live surveillance: street cams, drones, and one focused entirely on Zareina's thermal signature.
She chewed the end of a stylus. "Still doesn't react to tails. Nerve control's elite."
Next screen: zoomed-in footage of the seal in Zareina's coat.
Cipher smirked.
"She's carrying it... like it's hers."
A man's voice crackled through her earpiece. Calm. Measured.
Icarus.
"Report."
"She's aware. Doesn't flinch. And boss… she spoke."
Silence.
Then, Icarus replied, slowly:
"She's baiting me."
Cipher nodded. "Want me to engage?"
"No. Not yet. Let the spider walk into the web by choice."
Cipher paused, then added:
"…Aspen left a trace too. DNA on the seal. She wants to be followed."
Icarus chuckled. Cold. Unhurried.
"Let her. Let all of them come to me. Zareina will choose... and that choice will light the match."
---
The university was buzzing. Finals whispered through the halls, but gossip screamed louder.
She moved through it all—shoulders hunched, hands buried in her pockets, every step calculated to avoid contact.
Inside the criminology lecture hall, her usual seat waited—back row, left corner. The professor began a monologue on criminal profiling and evolving behavioral patterns. Zareina barely heard him.
Her mind was submerged in last night's storm:
The girl with tattoos and fangs in her smile.
The seal, snatched without fear.
The name whispered in the dark: Icarus.
She tapped her pen on the desk rhythmically, slow and steady, grounding herself.
And then—
Snicker.
The venom was soft but unmistakable. Three students two rows ahead. Whispers and side glances.
"She looks like she's cosplaying a shadow."
"Think she's got a scar under that mask?"
"Maybe she doesn't even have a face—just teeth."
Zareina didn't move. But her eyes flicked toward them—barely. A crack in the stillness.
And that was all it took.
Lisa stood.
Calm. Dangerous.
She turned toward the whispers, voice sharp as ice.
"You think that's funny? Mocking someone you don't even know?"
One of the girls rolled her eyes. "Relax, Lisa—she doesn't even talk. Probably doesn't care."
Lisa took a step forward. "Then I'll talk for her. From today on, I'm her only friend. If anyone says anything else... they'll wish they hadn't."
The silence that followed was louder than any threat. The trio shrank back, mumbling excuses.
Zareina blinked once.
Lisa turned back and sat beside her. Smiling—softly, like she'd won something sacred.
Zareina didn't speak. But she allowed it.
Which said more than words ever could.
---
After the break,Zareina's lecture began like any other—except now, Lisa was seated beside her, as if it had always been meant to be.
Whispers still floated in the air, but now they were laced with hesitation—fear mixed with fascination.
Zareina's gaze caught something unusual: a small, triangular scratch on the screen of the projector. She stared at it longer.
For a split second, a hidden message blinked into view.
"Trust the spider with purple eyes."
She froze.
Only one person matched that description.
Aspen.
Zareina reached into the inner lining of her hoodie—not for a weapon, but for a pulse reader tucked beneath the seam. It glowed softly.
Someone had accessed her biometric shield.
She wasn't just being followed; she was being tested.
---------
By evening, the lecture hall was just a memory. Zareina clocked in at the convenience store she worked at—third shift, quiet, away from eyes.
She stacked inventory without complaint, scanned barcodes without thought. But her mind remained on the seal in her pocket, pulsing with a gravity that pulled every thought back to it.
An invitation. A message. A challenge.
But she didn't mind because she noticed that someone..not someone..actually, two people were following her. She pulled out her phone and shot them a message using the same way they contacted her.
When her shift ended, she walked into the city.
No umbrella. She didn't mind the rain.
-------
Back in the van,
Cipher's screens went black for a moment.
Then one came to life.
It wasn't Zareina.
It was Aspen.
Smiling. Casual. Leaning against a wall with a lollipop in her mouth and fire in her eyes.
"Hey, hacker girl," Aspen purred through the camera.
"You're cute. But you missed something."
The screen glitched. Static. Then:
"Your van's tagged. I'll find you. Let's have a drink sometime."
Cipher blinked.
"…Well, damn."
------
Night had painted the sky pitch-black when she reached the alley—that alley. Where everything had begun.
She stood beneath a flickering streetlight, fingers grazing the seal in her coat.
And for the first time in days—she removed her glasses.
Her lenses.
Her mask.
Gold and violet gleamed in the dark, each eye burning with restrained power.
Rain kissed her face, but she didn't move. She stared into the void beyond the alleyway, voice low—barely a whisper.
"I want to meet you, Icarus.I really want to."
Somewhere, something shifted.
---
Meanwhile…
And far above it all—in a room with no locks—Icarus stood, a hand behind his back, the other holding a single card.
On it was Zareina's image.
He turned to the map of the city stretched across his wall. Her movements had created a pattern.
"A melody," he murmured.
He placed the card in the center.
Then added one more: Aspen.
Then Cipher.
And finally... his own.
"I don't need to chase shadows," Icarus said. "They come to me."
He then walked outside from his office to go back to his home.
-----
The penthouse was quiet. Icarus sat at the edge of a massive glass wall, overlooking the city below. His black gloves lay discarded on the table beside him. His sleeves rolled up. A scar curled down the inside of his forearm—delicate, surgical.
He read through reports. Surveillance logs. Criminal patterns.
But his thoughts... were on her.
She'd removed her lenses.
She wanted him to see.
"So," he murmured, pouring himself a drink, "you're ready to speak."
He downed the amber liquid, the ice clinking against glass like ticking seconds.
Outside, lightning lit the skyline.
Inside, the spider moved closer to the flame.
(To be continued)