CHAPTER 3: The Idol and the Ghost
1431 Words
The lights above the recording booth pulsed like blood vessels. Red. Dim. Watching.
Aria stood still, fingers wrapped loosely around the mic, trying not to growl as a dozen invisible eyes bore down on her.
“Okay, Nova, babe,” chirped a tinny voice through the headphones. “We’re rolling. Give it that spark. That post-coma pop magic. Don’t overthink it.”
She didn’t respond.
The music began—a glittery synthetic beat, engineered for summer charts and fifteen-second social media fame. Aria knew none of the lyrics, but her mouth did. This body remembered. Her tongue, her breath, the way her diaphragm pulled like a puppet.
But her voice…
Her voice was new.
It wrapped around the beat like smoke, low and sultry, with something darker underneath. Something ancient. It curled between syllables and slipped through harmonies like it knew how to stalk prey. The kind of voice that made hearts falter, not because it was pretty—but because it carried weight. Heat. Hunger.
By the time she hit the second chorus, the engineers outside the booth had stopped talking.
And when she finally let the last note fade, the silence that followed was heavy.
Someone exhaled, almost shakily.
“Holy sh*t,” one of them whispered.
Aria opened her eyes.
Their faces—once smug, bored, rehearsed—were now painted in stunned confusion. Dani leaned forward in her seat like she’d seen God with a backup dancer.
“That…” she breathed, “that is the comeback arc. You’re not a pop star. You’re a resurrection.”
Aria didn’t answer. She stepped down from the booth, ignoring the flutter of excitement and the flurry of camera phones trying to sneak footage. As she passed the mirrored wall near the exit, her reflection caught her eye.
She stopped.
Nova’s image stared back.
Hair spun from gold, tousled and wild. Eyes smudged from the heat of the room. Her mouth slightly parted from breathless notes still clinging to her lips. The neckline of her crop-top hoodie dipped just enough to tempt, the satin shorts hugging her hips like they’d been sewn directly onto her skin.
But it was the eyes that held her.
They weren’t Nova’s.
They were hers.
Aria’s.
Sharp. Knowing. Coiled with threat.
She pressed her fingers to the glass.
This body was unnatural. This face a lie. But beneath the layers of fame and fabrication, she felt it—the phantom of who she’d been. The girl who wrote code like spells. The omega princess whose enemies burned her house to ash and left her soul adrift.
She leaned closer, whispering to her reflection.
“Elian.”
The name curled from her lips like poison.
“You betrayed us. You sold out our blood for tech and profit and power. You gave me a second life—so I could ruin yours.”
Her smile curled like a knife.
And then Dani’s voice crashed in from behind.
“Babe, we are so going to the club tonight!”
---
Aria didn’t resist when Dani pulled her into the car, barely had to fake enthusiasm when stylists draped Nova’s name across her in black satin and diamonds. It wasn’t a costume anymore—it was armor. Her dress sparkled like a dark star, cut low, slit high, designed to disarm.
They arrived just after midnight.
The club was packed—celebrities, producers, and nightlife royalty writhing under violet strobes. Aria stepped onto the floor and the air shifted around her. Heads turned. Conversations stuttered mid-word. Her presence was a ripple of heat in a world frozen by its own vanity.
“Nova’s back,” someone gasped.
Dani beamed. “And better than ever.”
Aria walked slowly, letting them watch.
She moved through the pulse of the music, past i********:-famous DJ booths and velvet-curtained VIP dens. Her body responded to it all—this sensual, high-gloss life Nova Quinn had once ruled—but her mind sharpened like a blade. She scanned the room instinctively, eyes cutting past the crowd.
And then she saw him.
A flicker. A face.
No.
She stopped cold.
Scar across his brow. Eyes too alert for the setting. Shoulders hunched like a man used to hiding behind teeth.
Kellen.
He was dead.
She remembered him falling—silver in his lungs, his wolf form collapsing mid-charge. She’d smelled his blood as she ran. He had been one of hers.
And now he was watching her.
Not Nova. Her.
He turned and vanished into the far corridor.
Without hesitation, Aria followed.
---
The club’s interior hallway was darker, industrial. Metal walls thrummed with bass from the floor above. She kicked off her heels and padded barefoot after him, fast and quiet.
He didn’t run.
He waited.
She stepped into a maintenance tunnel lit only by a flickering EXIT sign.
Kellen stood there, trembling slightly.
“You’re alive,” she said first, breath measured. “So am I.”
He stared at her, unsure. “You… look like her.”
“I’m not her.”
His eyes flicked to the ceiling. “They said you burned. That no one from the Vex bloodline survived.”
“I didn’t,” she said. “But I came back.”
A beat of silence.
Then, softly, like prayer: “Aria.”
Her name from his lips felt like an echo from the grave.
“I thought you were just code in the wind,” he whispered. “They said you died in the upload. They didn’t know it worked.”
“I didn’t either. Not until I woke up here.”
He nodded toward her. “Nova was part of it, wasn’t she? That foundation. The experiments. The—”
“Carrier,” Aria finished. “She had a chip in her. They used her.”
Kellen swallowed. “They’re still using her. You. You’re in the crosshairs now.”
“Good,” she said, flat. “Let them try.”
His voice lowered. “There are others. A few. Hiding. Waiting.”
Her eyes burned. “When I call, they come.”
He nodded.
Then she turned and left him in the shadows.
---
The car was waiting.
Black. Sleek. Private.
Dominic Vale sat inside, silent, as if he’d always been there.
Aria slid in beside him, smooth and unbothered.
He said nothing for a long moment. Just looked at her.
“I saw you follow him.”
“I didn’t ask for a babysitter,” she said.
“I’m not your babysitter,” he said. “I’m your problem solver.”
She turned to him, voice like silk with a blade inside. “I’m not in the market for a leash.”
“You’re not.” His tone didn’t shift. “But you are being hunted. By people who do want one.”
She said nothing.
He leaned in just enough for his voice to grow quiet, intimate.
“Let me help you. You want your past back. You want your enemies exposed. You want to make them bleed. I can give you all of that.”
“And what do you want?”
His gaze dipped—slow, assessing.
“You.”
It wasn’t lust. Not just. It was hunger.
Possession.
She held his stare.
Didn’t answer.
Didn’t get out of the car either.
---
Back at the penthouse, Aria was alone again.
Moonlight painted the room in cold white streaks. Her heels hit the floor one by one. She walked past Nova’s clutter—designer chaos, broken promises, mirror-polished fame.
And then she stopped at the full-length mirror.
She stared.
No lights. No music. Just her reflection.
Her hair was wild from the wind. Her dress clung to her curves like it had been born on her skin. Her eyes were sharp, her mouth smirking with the aftermath of old truths rediscovered.
She was everything Nova had been built to be.
But inside?
She was something else.
She let the dress slip down one shoulder. It pooled at her feet.
Naked now, she traced her body—not with shame, but with calculation. Her breasts high, her waist sculpted, her hips wide, her legs powerful. A body made for temptation.
A body she would use for war.
“Elian,” she whispered, voice like a hex.
“You killed my blood. Took my house. Turned our name into a weapon.”
Her fingers curled into fists.
“But you didn’t bury me deep enough.”
The girl in the mirror smiled back.
The idol.
The ghost.
Soon, she would be their reckoning.
---
- Writer
