Chapter 3: First Touch

The lights came back on.

Marcus stood frozen in the center of the room, pulse hammering against his throat. Silas remained exactly where he'd been, cross-legged on his bed, book open in his lap. His silver eyes tracked Marcus with the patience of someone who had all the time in the world. 

"What did you just call me?" Marcus's voice came out strangled.

"I didn't call you anything." Silas turned a page without looking down at it. "The power surged. This is an old building. It happens all the time."

"You said Michael."

"Did I?" Silas tilted his head, his expression infuriatingly neutral. "I don't recall."

Marcus wanted to cross the room and shake him. He wanted to grab those slim shoulders and demand answers until Silas's calm exterior fractured and the truth spilled out. Instead, he dug his nails into his palms, feeling the sharp bite of pain ground him.

"You're lying."

"Maybe." Silas closed the book, setting it aside with deliberate care. "Or maybe you heard what you needed to hear."

Sleep didn't come that night. Marcus lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sound of Silas's breathing. Except Silas didn't really breathe. The rhythm was too perfect, too measured, like someone performing the act of breathing rather than doing it unconsciously. Every inhale and exhale came at exact intervals, mechanical in their precision.

Marcus turned onto his side, facing the wall. His mind churned through possibilities, each more impossible than the last. Hallucination, shared psychosis, or some elaborate hoax orchestrated by Dr. Cross for reasons Marcus couldn't fathom. The photograph burning a hole in his wallet, hidden beneath his pillow.

Behind him, Silas's breathing continued. On. Off. On. Off. Like a metronome keeping time to a song only he could hear.

Morning came with fog pressed against the windows, thick enough to swallow the redwoods whole. Marcus woke to find Silas already dressed, standing at the window with one hand pressed flat against the glass. The condensation spread around his palm, but when he pulled his hand away, there was no mark. No fingerprints. No proof he'd touched it at all.

Marcus sat up slowly. "How long have you been awake?"

"I don't sleep." Silas said it matter-of-factly, still staring out at the fog. "Not really. I close my eyes sometimes, and rest. But it's not the same thing."

"That's not possible."

"Isn't it?" Silas turned from the window. In the gray morning light, his skin had a translucent quality, like light could pass through him if you looked close enough. "You don't sleep well either. I heard you tossing all night."

Marcus swung his legs over the side of the bed. His mouth tasted like metal, his head aching with the weight of too many questions. "I need coffee."

"There's a dining hall." Silas moved toward the door with that same unnatural grace. "I'll show you."

"You're coming with me?"

"Would you prefer I didn't?"

Yes, Marcus wanted to say. He wanted Silas gone, wanted this entire situation to make sense, wanted to wake up in his San Francisco apartment with the memory of this place nothing more than a fever dream. Instead, he grabbed his wallet from under the pillow and followed Silas into the hallway.

The dining hall was cavernous, all exposed beams and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the fog-shrouded grounds. A handful of patients sat scattered among the tables, speaking in low murmurs or staring into their coffee cups with the glazed expressions of people on heavy medication. Staff members moved between them, checking vitals, offering encouragement, their seafoam scrubs a constant reminder that this was a facility, not a home.

Marcus got coffee from an urn that looked older than the building itself. The liquid was bitter and lukewarm, but he drank it anyway, needing the caffeine more than he cared about taste.

Silas sat across from him at an empty table. No food. No coffee. Just his hands folded on the table's surface, fingers laced together.

"You're not eating," Marcus observed.

"I'm not hungry."

"You never eat?"

"Don't I?" That infuriating half-smile again. "Maybe you haven't been paying attention."

Marcus set his cup down harder than necessary. Coffee sloshed over the rim, pooling on the table. "Stop doing that. Stop answering every question with another question."

"What would you like me to say instead?"

"The truth."

Silas's smile faded. For a moment, something raw and aching moved behind his eyes, there and gone so fast Marcus almost missed it. "The truth is complicated."

"Try me."

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Try. Me."

Silas leaned back in his chair. The morning light from the windows passed through him just slightly, making his edges blur and soften. "What do you remember about the night you came here?"

"Nothing. I already told you that."

"Nothing at all? Not the drive, not checking in, not signing paperwork?"

Marcus shook his head, frustration mounting. "It's just blank. One minute I'm in my office in San Francisco, the next I'm waking up here three days later."

"And you don't find that strange?"

"Of course I find it strange. That's why I'm asking you to explain it."

"I can't." Silas's fingers drummed once against the table, a nervous gesture that seemed at odds with his usual calm. "Or I won't. I haven't decided which."

Marcus reached across the table without thinking. His hand shot out, fingers wrapping around Silas's wrist. The contact sent ice flooding up his arm, so cold it burned. Silas's skin felt like touching a corpse pulled from winter water, stiff, unyielding and wrong.

Silas didn't pull away. He held Marcus's gaze, something challenging in those silver eyes.

"You felt it," Marcus breathed. His grip tightened, thumb pressing against the inside of Silas's wrist where a pulse should have been. There was nothing. It was just cold, unmoving flesh. "You're freezing."

"I told you. I run cold."

"This isn't cold. This is—" Marcus couldn't finish. Couldn't name what this was. He pressed harder, searching for warmth, for blood flow, for any sign of life beneath Silas's skin. Still nothing.

"You're touching me." Silas's voice had gone very quiet. "You're the first person in a very long time who's touched me like this."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm real."

The words hit Marcus like a fist to the sternum. He should have let go. Should have pulled away, put distance between himself and this impossible man with his ice-cold skin, his silver eyes and his complete absence in mirrors. Instead, his thumb moved in a slow circle against Silas's wrist, feeling the texture of skin that shouldn't exist.

"Are you?" Marcus whispered. "Real?"

Silas's eyes darkened. "What do you think?"

"I think you don't have a pulse. I think you don't breathe right. I think you cast no reflection and staff members look through you like you're not there." Marcus's hand trembled against Silas's wrist. "I think you're dead."

The word hung between them, sharp and final.

Silas pulled his hand away slowly. The absence of his skin left Marcus's palm aching with phantom cold. "Not quite."

"Then what are you?"

"Bound." Silas stood, the chair scraping against the floor. "I am trapped, or waiting. Call it whatever you like."

"You are a ghost."

"If that makes it easier for you to understand."

Marcus's vision tunneled. The dining hall tilted, sounds dulling to white noise. He gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles going white. "This isn't real. You're not real."

"You keep saying that." Silas's hand hovered near Marcus's shoulder, close but not touching. "If I'm not real, why do you keep reaching for me?"

Because Marcus couldn't help it. Because even knowing Silas was dead, or not-quite-dead, or whatever impossible thing he was, Marcus wanted to touch him again. He wanted to feel that bone-deep cold and know it was solid, tangible, proof that he wasn't the one losing his mind.

"The photograph," Marcus managed. "1924. That's you."

"Yes."

"And the other man—"

"Was someone I knew." Silas's expression shuttered closed. "Someone I've been waiting for."

The implication hit Marcus like ice water. He looked up at Silas, at the way those silver eyes held him with such quiet certainty, such patient recognition. "You think that's me."

"I don't think anything. I know."

Marcus shoved back from the table, the chair clattering behind him. Other patients looked over, startled. Staff members moved toward them, concerned. Marcus didn't care. He needed air, space, and to not be staring at a ghost who looked at him like he was something precious, but lost and finally, found.

Silas didn't follow him. He just stood there by the table, one hand still extended in that almost-touch, and said the words that chased Marcus out of the dining hall, down the corridor and into the cold morning air.

"You felt it too, didn't you?"