The Viral Noise
Ezzy chose The Rookery, a dimly lit, perpetually under-construction bar in the East Village known for its thick atmosphere and a constant stream of live, raw poetry. It was loud, chaotic, and brimming with distracting auras—the perfect camouflage.
She waited in a back booth, the shadow-shard inside her a terrifying, cold certainty. Through the forced psychic link, she'd been tracking Caspian's frustration all morning. He'd tried three times to command her location, and each time, Ezzy had simply focused on the loudest, most jarring music she could find, sending a blast of sonic dissonance down the bond.
He arrived precisely at midnight.
Ezzy didn't see him enter; she felt him. The air in the smoky bar seemed to drop twenty degrees. A wave of nervous energy rippled through the nearest patrons as they subconsciously registered the presence of a pure, primal void.
Caspian moved with the effortless grace of a predator who knows he's the most dangerous thing in the room. He slid into the booth opposite her, his glacial eyes fixed on her face.
"You chose a noisy grave," he stated, his voice a low, resonant rumble that somehow cut through the din. "Are you trying to kill us both with sound?"
"I'm trying to keep the cold hunger you left in my chest from making me steal the bartender's life-force," Ezzy retorted, leaning forward. "And this is a public place, Thief. If you try to hurt me, I'll scream—psychically—and blast every ounce of fear and desperation in this room directly into what little soul you have left."
A faint flicker of admiration crossed his features, quickly masked by annoyance. "The piece of my essence you contain is unstable. It is consuming your light, and you are tainting my power with your recklessness. This is a temporary crisis, not a negotiation."
"It is a negotiation," Ezzy insisted, her voice dropping. "Because right now, you and I are one highly volatile bomb. And until you tell me how to safely separate us, I run the show."
She met his gaze, forcing herself past the terror and focusing on the raw, furious passion that had drawn him to her in the first place. Urban love was volatile, messy, and uncompromising.
"The process requires time, tools, and a degree of control neither of us possesses while we're running from my Rivals," Caspian admitted, his jaw tightening. "They know I am vulnerable. They will be looking for the anomaly—the bright, chaotic light linked to the shadow."
The anomaly. That was her new title.
As they spoke, a young woman at the next table suddenly burst into tears, clutching her phone. Ezzy didn't need to read the woman's aura to know the emotion was overwhelming dramatic sadness.
"Oh my god, it's Chapter 4! He just left her! I can't breathe!" the woman cried to her friend.
Ezzy glanced over, annoyed by the interruption. "What is she talking about?"
Caspian barely spared a glance. "Social media noise. Irrelevant."
"No, wait." Ezzy strained to hear the title being whispered in the booth behind them.
"The Heart-Eater's Echo."
A cold wave of dread washed over Ezzy. That was too close. She pulled out her own phone and, with shaking fingers, searched the title.
It exploded onto her screen: The Heart-Eater's Echo: A Serial Urban Romance.
The book was barely 48 hours old, posted by an anonymous user, "The Watcher." It was already topping trending charts. The description read: "He lives in the shadows, consuming the passion of the city. She is the artist who saw his sin. Now, a devastating, unsought bond ties them together in a forbidden love."
Ezzy scanned the summary of the latest chapter. It described their encounter in the subway, not exactly, but close enough to be horrifying—the glacier-eyed Thief, the silver-haired artist, the sudden, violent connection. It was a fast-paced, breathless, and intensely dramatic fictionalization of their actual lives.
"Oh my gods," Ezzy whispered, shoving the phone under Caspian's nose. "This is us. Someone saw us."
Caspian looked down at the bright screen, his eyes narrowed. He was looking at his own legend, sensationalized and sold for clicks.
"The description of the stolen aura... it's perfect," he murmured, a flicker of genuine shock crossing his face. "It's too accurate to be coincidence. Whoever wrote this… they're feeding on our residual energy. They are publishing our story—our conflict, our terror, and our… connection—as a viral spectacle."
The irony was brutal. Their desperate, deadly situation was now the most popular urban romance on the internet, hooking readers with its raw, stolen emotion.
"This changes everything," Ezzy said, her heart hammering. "They're tracking our movements, our emotions. We can't hide. We can only control the narrative."
Caspian's lips curved into a slow, dangerous smile, a glint of the predator returning. "An excellent suggestion, Anomaly. If our life is a stage, then we make it the greatest show on earth. We give them a romance so consuming, so distracting, that no Rival would believe it's real."
He reached across the table, his cold hand brushing her wrist. The shadow shard flared inside her, and she felt his absolute resolve—the fusion of his ancient power and her desperate will. The bond tightened, not with hatred, but with a terrifying, absolute agreement.
"Welcome to the act, Ezzy," Caspian whispered, his voice dark with promise. "Now tell me: Where is the next scene?"
They were the stars of a viral sensation. To survive, they had to fake a dramatic, passionate romance that was already terrifyingly real.