Part 1   My name is Elena. For the last six months, my job has been to be a ghost. A ghost who scrubs toilets. A ghost who polishes floors so clean you can see your own terrified reflection in them. I work at the Blackwood estate, a $150 million glass-and-stone monster perched over the…

Part 1   The bad dreams had been getting worse, even before the permission slip. Not the usual kind. These were the vivid ones. The ones that came with smells—cordite, diesel, and the coppery tang of blood in the dry desert air. The ones that came with sounds—the thump-thump-thump of incoming rounds, the scream of…

Part 1   The laughter in the private dining room of Boston’s Damascus Rose was as sharp and cold as breaking glass. I kept my hand steady, my fork hovering over a piece of lamb I had no intention of eating. I was playing the Quiet Game. Across the table, twelve members of the Al-Mansur…

———–TIÊU ĐỀ BÀI VIẾT————- They Left My 9-Year-Old Daughter Home Alone, Forcing Her to Mop the Entire Kitchen Floor With Bleach… While They Took Their “Real” Granddaughter on a Shopping Spree. They Laughed When They Got Home. They Didn’t Know I Was Already There. This Is the Night My Husband Had to Choose Between His…

Part 1 The morning chill off the Coronado coast was a familiar, biting cold, but it was nothing compared to the ice in Admiral Hargrove’s eyes. “Some candidates,” he said, his voice a low growl that carried over the rhythmic crash of the surf, “may find the adjustment… challenging.” His steel-grey eyes found me, locked…

Part 1   The restaurant was a blur of noise. Friday night. The clinking of glasses, the murmur of conversations, the sharp, bright laughter of people who had places to be and people to love. I had neither. My name is Emma Clarke. I was at a table for one, surrounded by the ghosts of…