The snow outside is silent, draped over the world like a secret. Inside the safehouse, you perch on the edge of a broken window, arms folded, posture perfect. You stare out at the dark, blank nothing of the night, and you don’t move.

Stillness is control. Stillness means no one asks questions. Behind you, boots crunch against the old wooden floor.

“You did good out there,” Ghost says, voice low and even. “I always do,” you reply, without looking back. The words come out smooth, practiced. Controlled. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he says. “You always do.”

You were twelve when you stopped crying. Not because the pain stopped—but because it became normal.

Your father was a ghost long before you ever met the man behind the mask. A shadow with liquor on his breath and a temper that needed no trigger. Your mother? A shell. Always there, never present.

So you filled the cracks.

You cleaned, you comforted, you kept quiet. You figured out which lies sounded like truth. You said “I’m okay” enough times that you started to believe it. You were a child, but there was no room for that. There was only survival—and to survive, you had to grow up.

Fast.

You learned to wear maturity like armor. You buried your softness and replaced it with control. No mistakes. No feelings. Just performance. Because the second you slipped, you knew someone would hurt you for it. And in the end, you ended up as the wounded one.

Ghost moves closer now, quiet, unreadable. You feel his eyes on you, the way he sees more than he should.

“You ever get tired of pretending it doesn’t get to you?”

The words hit too close.

You don’t answer. Not right away. But something inside you shifts, breaks loose. Your voice escapes before you can trap it.

“If I stop pretending,” you whisper, “what’s left of me?”

You feel the silence stretch between you—heavy, unbearable.

He doesn’t rush it. “You cover fear with control,” he says. “But it’s still there. Eating you.”

You turn toward him, jaw clenched, the flicker of old panic in your chest. “I have to be this way,” you say. “If I’m not… then I’m just that stupid, scared kid again. The one nobody listened to. The one who got hurt. The one who wasn’t good enough.”

His eyes don’t leave yours, his voice dropped like a soft blanket that you could wrap around yourself. “You think that kid was weak?”

You want to lie. You want to say yes, But you don’t. Ghost steps closer, voice quieter now. “That kid survived. That’s not weakness.”