© 2025 Kaela Seraphine. All Rights Reserved

The bell above the door jingled. You stepped in and the air shifted—like you'd walked onto a stage mid-scene.

Then you saw her.

Wiping down the counter with a rhythm too elegant for a diner that smelled like burnt oil and broken dreams. Her uniform was slightly undone at the collar. Her eyes shimmered like secrets—and not the kind people survive knowing.

She noticed you noticing. "You're sitting in Booth Five?" she asked.

You nodded.

"Brave."

You blinked. “How so?”

“Booth Five remembers things,” she said, placing a napkin in front of you. “Sit there long enough and it’ll start asking questions you don’t want to answer.”

You almost laughed—until you saw the way her eyes didn't.

She handed you a pen. “Name?”

“Why?”

“I like writing things down,” she said, sliding into the seat across from you without asking. “Today I’m in a cursive mood.”

She scribbled your name on a small order pad. The loops were soft, romantic. You caught a glimpse of a different page, written in spiky, aggressive block letters. Same hand.

“You change your handwriting?”

“Depending on how I feel,” she said. “Today I feel... like you’re interesting.”

“And what does that look like?”8

She smiled slowly. “Like a question mark in human form.”

You looked closer. Her name tag read Lia, but the letters were barely legible. Probably on purpose. “So, Lia... why does a girl like you work here?”

“Define ‘a girl like me,’” she purred.

“Beautiful. Controlled. Dangerous.”

She paused. Then leaned in, whispering like a confession: “Because the last place I worked at had marble floors and people with guns in their shoes.”

You stared. “That’s not a joke, is it?”

She smiled. But her eyes? Hollow. “I don’t joke anymore.”

The jukebox played something soft. You didn’t notice when she moved next to you, only that her perfume smelled expensive, like a life she no longer claimed.

She took the pen back and wrote something else on your napkin. “They're watching you.”