Page 12 of Weight of Shadows
But it was the corner behind me that caught my eye. The wall there was supposed to be empty, just dark wood and the edge of a velvet curtain. In the photo, however, there was something else. A shape. A silhouette that didn't belong to any of us with broad shoulders, a sharp jawline, and hands hanging unnervingly still at its sides. It looked like a man standing just out of the light, watching us.
"Weird shadow, right?" Theo said, his voice casual, but he was watching our reactions with intensity. "The geometry is too consistent. It looks like someone was standing right behind you, Oleander."
Julian leaned in closer, his brow furrowing as he studied the image. His hand, still resting near Rowan's, twitched. He looked up from the camera, his eyes locking onto mine, and for a second, the air between us felt thin enough to snap.
"I know that shape," Julian whispered. "That's the note I couldn't hit. That's the rest at the end of the bar. It's been in the music all night."
Rowan's grip on Julian's neck tightened. He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw genuine fear in his eyes.
"I need a minute," I said, and shoved back from the bar before anyone could respond.
I pushed through the door of the restroom and slammed it shut, leaning my back against the wood. The room was small, lit by a single flickering bulb that cast long shadows across the cracked tile. I splashed cold water on my face, keeping my head down, watching the water swirl down the drain. I could still see the shape in the photo. I could still smell the faint scent of Dominic's cologne cutting through the bleach. It was familiar in a way that made my stomach turn.
I looked up. I forced myself to meet my own eyes in the mirror. My face was pale, my eyes wide. And then, the light flickered.
In the split second of darkness, the shadow behind me in the mirror shifted. It was a man. He was standing directly behind my left shoulder, his solid, broad frame filling the narrow space of the bathroom. The shadow behind me had a face I recognized with dark hair, a clean fade, and a smile that stretched just a little too far, revealing teeth that were too white, too perfect.
His eyes were hollow, two pits of absolute nothingness that seemed to pull the light from the room. He didn't speak, but I heard him anyway. A single word, vibrating in my marrow like a hum.Mine.
I blinked, and the light came back on. The mirror showed only me, shaking, gasping, alone. I gripped the edges of the sink andstayed there until my breathing leveled out, staring at the empty space in the mirror where he'd been.
I turned off the tap, dried my hands on my jeans, and walked back out into the bar. The three of them were still at the bar, waiting. But the map was more complicated than I'd thought. There was a fourth point in the room, and I was starting to think he knew exactly where I was.
eleven
JULIAN
I told the bartender to pass a message if Oleander came in: Bar. Ten AM. Tomorrow. No explanation. If Oleander was the kind of man who needed coaxing, he wasn't the kind of man I needed to talk to.
He was, though. I already knew that. I'd known it since the melody pushed through my fingers and his whole body turned to stone. I'd known it since Rowan said his name in the dark of our bedroom and I felt the shape of it land in my chest.
The bar was empty at ten. That was the point. No patrons, no amber light, no performance. Just the piano and the bench and the stale smell of last night's whiskey soaking into the wood. I sat with the lid closed, my hands resting on the surface, feelingthe faint vibration of the instrument underneath. Even silent, it hummed. It had been humming for weeks now, a low frequency that matched the melody I couldn't shake, the one that didn't belong to me.
The door groaned when he pushed it open. His footsteps were hesitant on the floorboards, the careful pace of someone who expected to be told to leave. I didn't turn around. I listened to him approach the way I listened to a piece of music I was learning, tracking the rhythm of his breathing, the slight drag of his left boot, the moment he stopped a few feet behind me and stood there, deciding.
"Sit down, Oleander," I said.
He sat. The bench was narrow and our thighs pressed together, a line of heat through the fabric that neither of us acknowledged. He smelled like coffee and cold air and, underneath, that faint sweetness that wasn't his. It never was. It clung to him like a stain he couldn't wash out.
He opened his mouth to speak and I could already hear the shape of it. The apology. The confession. The careful, guilt-soaked retelling of the night with Rowan, offered up like penance in a church that had already burned down.
"I already know," I said, before he could start. "Rowan told me the night it happened. You don't have to carry that one anymore."
He went still beside me. I could feel the tension leave his shoulders in a slow, uneven exhale, replaced by something worse. Confusion. The particular vertigo of a man who has been bracing for impact and the blow never comes.
"Then why am I here?" he asked.
"Because of the melody."
The word landed between us and the temperature on the bench dropped just enough for me to notice. Oleander's hands, resting on his knees, curled into fists.
"The night you first came to the bar," I said, keeping my voice level, "I played something I've never learned. I've studied music my entire life, Oleander. I know every piece I've ever performed. I know the history of every note. But that night, my hands played a melody that doesn't exist in any archive, any catalogue, any composer's work I've ever encountered." I looked at him. "And you recognized it."
He didn't deny it. His jaw tightened and his eyes dropped to the closed lid of the piano, fixed on the dark wood like he could see something in the grain that I couldn't.
"It wasn't just recognition," I continued. "I watched your face. You didn't hear a familiar song. You heard something personal. Something that belonged to you. And then you ran."
The silence that followed was heavy but not hostile. It was the silence of two people standing on either side of a door, both knowing what was behind it, neither ready to push it open.
