The storm raged for two days. It was a fury of lashing rain and howling wind that turned the compound into a drum, every surface vibrating with the onslaught. The world beyond the walls ceased to exist, swallowed by grey turmoil. The power flickered, died, and was restored by a generator whose deep-throated growl became the new background hum.
Confinement bred a strange intimacy among the residents. They gathered in the common room by the fire, wrapped in blankets. Leo taught them a complicated card game that involved dramatic storytelling. Liana produced her secret novels, and even Gareth listened as she read aloud a particularly absurd passage about a kidnapped Scottish laird. For stretches of time, the Covenant, the rules, the looming presence of Mireya, all receded. They were just people, waiting out a storm.
Rafe was a ghost during this time. He and Mireya were sequestered in his office or the surveillance room, the door firmly closed. The occasional murmur of their voices, sometimes raised in what sounded like fierce debate, would seep through the walls. Yasmine tried not to listen, but her body was attuned to the sound of him, and every sharp tone from Mireya felt like a needle prick.
Mireya herself would emerge occasionally, a spectre of effortless composure amidst the collective dishevelment. She would watch their little gatherings with an expression of detached amusement, like a scientist observing lab mice. Her eyes always found Yasmine, and the message was clear: This is temporary. This is not your life.
On the second night, as the storm reached its peak, the generator coughed and failed.
Darkness, absolute and smothering, plunged over the villa. The fire in the common room grate was the only source of light, painting terrified faces in flickering ochre and black.
"It's just the storm," Liana said, her voice tight. "It's happened before. Rafe will fix it."
But minutes ticked by. The wind screamed like a thing in pain. Rain hammered the windows as if trying to break in. The fire began to die down, the shadows stretching longer, swallowing the room.
"I'll find candles," Gareth said, rising. He moved with a soldier's purpose toward the kitchen.
A door opened down the hall, spilling the weak beam of a flashlight. Rafe appeared, the light carving harsh planes into his face. Mireya was a step behind him, a silhouette.
"Generator's flooded. Backup circuits are down," Rafe said, his voice cutting through the panic. His flashlight beam swept the room. "Everyone stay here. Gareth, with me. We'll get the emergency lamps from the west wing storage."
The west wing. The words landed in Yasmine's stomach like a stone.
Rafe and Gareth moved off down the dark corridor, their flashlight beams bobbing. The group fell into an anxious silence, broken only by the storm and the rasp of Leo striking a match to try and light a candle from the dying fire.
Yasmine sat, pulled her knees to her chest, and tried to breathe. But the image of the locked door, the carved symbol, burned behind her eyes. He was going there. Now. In the dark, in the chaos.
Five minutes passed. Ten. The darkness felt alive, pressing in.
Then, a sound.
Not the storm. A human sound. Muffled, distorted by distance and the howling wind, but unmistakable. A cry. A shout of pure, unadulterated rage and anguish. It was cut off abruptly.
It came from the west wing.
Everyone in the common room froze. Liana's hand flew to her mouth. Leo's match went out.
Mireya, who had been standing aloof by the door, went perfectly still. Then, a slow, chilling smile spread across her face. "Ah," she whispered, almost to herself. "The ghosts are loud tonight."
Yasmine was on her feet before she knew it. The sound… it had been Rafe's voice. She was sure of it.
"Where are you going?" Liana hissed.
"I need… I need air," Yasmine lied, already moving toward the hall.
"Yasmine, don't!" Leo called, but she was already in the darkness.
She had no light. She felt her way along the cold, familiar wall, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs. The corridor to the west wing was colder, the air tasting of dust and damp. The howl of the storm was slightly muted here, buried deeper in the villa's bones.
A sliver of faint, bluish light spilled from under the infamous locked door. It was slightly ajar.
The symbol on the doorframe seemed to glow in the peripheral gloom.
She could hear voices now, low and urgent.
"—get a grip! Now!" Gareth, sounding uncharacteristically shaken.
A raw, shattered breath. Then Rafe's voice, but unlike she'd ever heard it: stripped, broken, vibrating with a pain that was decades deep. "I saw her. In the flash. I saw her face."
"It was a shadow. A trick of the light. The files are just files, Rafe."
"They're not just files!" The roar was followed by the sound of something heavy crashing to the floor. "They're graves! And I buried them all!"
Yasmine crept closer, peering through the narrow gap.
The room was not a room. It was an archive, as she had suspected. But seeing it was different. Metal shelves stretched into the darkness, crammed with cardboard boxes and binders. In the centre, under the glow of a single, battery-powered work lamp, was a scene of devastation. A box had been upended, spilling its contents—photographs, documents—across a table and onto the floor.
Rafe stood in the middle of it, his back to her, shoulders heaving. He had one hand braced on the table, his head hung low. Gareth stood a few feet away, his face pale, hands half-raised as if calming a wild animal.
And on the floor, near Rafe's feet, Yasmine saw a photograph. A woman, laughing, her face illuminated by a sun that no longer shone. She had Yasmine's eyes. Her smile.
The world tilted.
Rafe suddenly went still. He sensed her. He always sensed her.
He turned slowly.
In the stark, bluish light, he looked utterly destroyed. His eyes were wide, black pools of horror, not at what he'd seen, but at her seeing him like this. All his control, his granite composure, was shattered. Here was the raw nerve, the wound that never healed. Here was the man beneath the Keeper, drowning in ghosts.
"Yasmine." Her name was a gasp, a plea.
He took a stumbling step toward her, then another, his movements disjointed. He was coming to the door, to her.
Gareth moved to intercept. "Rafe, don't—"
But Rafe was already at the door. He wrenched it fully open. The light from the room fell on her, illuminating her own shock, her fear.
He didn't speak. He just looked at her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his eyes drinking her in as if she were the only solid thing in a collapsing world.
Then, he reached for her.
His hands, those scarred, capable hands, framed her face. The touch was not gentle. It was desperate, possessive, grounding. His thumbs stroked her cheekbones, his gaze searching hers, looking for… what? Absolution? Recognition? A anchor?
"You're real," he breathed, the words ragged. "You're here."
He was confirming it for himself. The ghost in the photograph was on the floor. The living woman was in his hands.
He leaned his forehead against hers, a gesture of such profound exhaustion and need that it stole her breath. His skin was fever-hot. He was trembling. "Don't look in there," he whispered, his lips almost brushing hers. "Don't ever look."
Then, as if the act of touching her had burned him, he flinched back. The horror returned to his eyes, now directed inward. He saw what he had done—broken his own rule, exposed the fracture, touched what he had sworn to protect from himself.
He released her as if she were white-hot iron.
"Gareth," he said, his voice now a hollow shell. "Get her out of here. Lock it. Lock it down."
He turned his back on her, on the spilled graves of his past, and walked into the darkness of the archive, disappearing between the shelves.
Gareth gently took Yasmine's arm. "Come on."
She let him lead her away, her skin still burning from his touch, her mind reeling from the photograph. As Gareth pulled the heavy door shut behind them, she heard the definitive thunk of the lock engaging.
But the lock was meaningless now. The door had been opened. The ghosts had been seen. And the man who held the keys was trapped inside with them, more prisoner than ever before. And he had touched her as if she were his only lifeline, before letting go.