Chapter Text
The fog didn’t hide much. It only made the city look slower, like it was stalling for time. Daniel sat in the dark, lit by the echo of things that didn’t matter anymore. The book tour was over. The flashbulbs, the fake laughter gone. All that was left was silence. And in that silence, the voices came back.
He had once feared the thirst above all else. The burn in his throat. The gnawing ache when hunger lingered too long. But that paled in comparison to what stared back from the mirror a face he couldn’t name, a flicker of something not his. A shadow. A memory.
Armand.
Maybe it was New York. Maybe Paris. Or maybe just a bar dim light, too much gin, someone humming an old tune while everything good slipped out of reach.
He pressed his fingertips to his temples, trying to calm the storm inside. Since his turning no, his creation those moments kept coming. At first they were faint, like drifting scents. Then they whispered from unseen corners. Now they arrived with surgical precision.
Armand had cared for him once. Somewhere in time. Enough to break him. Enough to walk away.
And then, years later, he had returned. Not to love. But to change him. Without warning. Without compassion.
And then he was gone again.
Daniel stood and approached the window. Below, the city pulsed with light, like veins burning beneath glass.
"Where are you, you coward?" he whispered.
He would find him. Not just to demand answers. Not just to settle a debt.
But because something deeper compelled him.
He needed it for himself.
Somewhere beneath all the echoes and memories was Daniel Molloy.
He didn’t know if he was still a man. Or just what was left after someone rewrote him in blood. But he would not stop until he was whole.