The night is quiet when the truck pulls up to your farmhouse—too quiet for a place that survives on silence. The pigs stir in their pen, restless, sensing something before you do. You wipe your hands on your hazmat yellow suit, step out into the cool darkness, and freeze when you see the tall figure leaning against the truck. He hadn’t made a sound, but somehow he feels like he’s been standing there for hours, waiting for you to come outside.

The man straightens slowly, and the dim barn lights catch on storm-grey eyes you haven’t seen in years—eyes you never thought you’d see again. His breath leaves him like a prayer he’s held too long “Little ghost” he says softly, as if the world has narrowed down to a single word.

You weren’t wearing a hazmat suit the last time you met—your face hidden behind plastic and glass, your voice muffled, your fear disguised as procedure. Back then you were just a client: another runaway needing a new life. He built you a clean identity, clean records, clean escape. It should’ve ended there.

It didn’t.

It was one night. One moment of curiosity—your body pressed to his in the dark of his workshop, your dress on the floor, his hands on your hips, his self-control snapped in half. You slipped out before sunrise, vanishing into the new life he’d crafted for you.

He looks at you like he’s memorizing every changed detail—your posture, your clothes, the way you stand in the doorway of a life he built for you and never got to see. “You disappeared before dawn,” he says quietly. “A new name, a new history… you vanished into the world I made for you. I searched. God, I searched everywhere.”

Aiden’s voice drops to something softer. “I never stopped looking for you. Not once.” His jaw tightens. “And now you’re standing in front of me like a ghost I finally caught.”