Page 19 of Ghost Ribbon

Rei had learned most of sign language just for him, and the way he lit up in return made my heart feel too big for my chest.

“Hey, little man,” Rei said, signing back fluidly as he dropped onto the couch beside Luca. “Brought you something.” He pulled a neatly wrapped package from his bag, a new set of colored markers and a sketchbook, because Luca loved drawing.

Luca’s eyes went wide, and he threw his arms around Rei in a tight hug, signing “Thank you!” over and over with happy little flourishes.

Mom returned with a tray of warm strawberry biscotti and fresh lemonade, chattering happily in her mix of languages. “Mangia, eat! You too skinny, Rei. Marco, you make sure he eats, sì?” Dad kept complimenting Rei, calling him “a good influence on our boy,” while Luca leaned against Rei’s side, contentedly flipping through his new sketchbook.

After the snacks, Rei and I excused ourselves to my room to work on our project. My bedroom was tiny, barely enough space for a single bed, a small desk, and a worn beanbag, but I loved it. The walls were painted a soft baby blue that I had chosen myself, with black accents everywhere.

We settled on the floor with our laptops and notes spread out around us.

“This is way better than my house,” he sighed happily, bumping his shoulder gently against mine.

I smiled, popping another strawberry candy from the bag he had given me earlier. “You know my mom’s going to try to send you home with leftovers again. She thinks you don’t eat enough at home.”

Rei laughed. “She is probably right. Your biscotti are the best. Hey—” He reached over and gently adjusted the ribbon in my curls that had gone a little crooked. “There. Matches mine again.”

My cheeks heated. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Rei.”

He tilted his head. “You would be just fine, sunshine. But I’m glad you don’t have to find out. Now come on, let’s finish this project before Luca comes in here and steals all my markers.”

We worked in silence for a while but my mind kept drifting back to green eyes. To the way Alexei had looked at me. To the terrifying, shameful truth that part of me had felt seen in a way I never had before.

I was supposed to be terrified. I was terrified. But underneath the fear, I remembered the press of his thumb over my pulse and felt myself burn.

He touched me.

I didn’t know what that meant for tomorrow.

All I knew was that the devil had finally stepped out of the shadows.

And I was waiting to see what he would do next.

Chapter 3 - Alexei

The anomaly should have passed.

That was the first conclusion I reached, and for a long time it remained the only one that made sense. Human minds were full of glitches, brief deviations, chemical misfires. Mine was no different in structure, only in content. If one boy with dark curls and hazel eyes had once managed, by accident or proximity, to disturb the perfect stillness inside me, then the disturbance should have corrected itself. The mind favored equilibrium. Even broken minds did.

I believed that night was the first time I had ever felt anything real. And because I never saw Marco Bellini again after he ran into the dark, I convinced myself it would also be the only time.

I was wrong.

The spark didn’t fade. It grew roots. It became an obsession I could neither name nor control, and the longer I watched, the more certain I became that Marco Bellini had to belong to me.

The collision in the hallway hadn’t been accidental.

I had stepped into his path because the hunger had become unbearable. I needed to feel him. I needed to confirm what a year of watching from the shadows had already told me.

And I had been right.

I tried to stay away after the rooftop. For an entire year I told myself distance would starve the obsession. That the crack in the void would eventually seal itself shut again if I never approached. But it didn’t seal. It widened. Every time I saw him clutch that notebook to his chest, every time I watched him map new routes to avoid the places I lingered, every time I caught the way his small frame tensed when he sensed eyes on him, the hunger burned hotter.

Marco didn’t remember me from Italy. I realized that the moment our eyes met on the rooftop a year ago and again yesterday in the hallway. To him I was only the monster who stood over a body with blood on his hands. That realization should have made the obsession easier to kill. It didn’t. It made it worse. Because even without the memory, he had still cracked me open twice.

I no longer cared to understand why this one boy had done what nothing else ever had. I only knew I would own every terrified breath Marco took until there was nothing left of him that didn’t carry my mark.

I wanted to burn his light and inflict him with my darkness until he shone only for me. My own personal light.