OPERATION WINTERSPINE (Strings Between Us Book 2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: OF MEMORY VAULTS, CURFEWED LOVE, AND THE BOY WHO WAS NEVER

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: OF MEMORY VAULTS, CURFEWED LOVE, AND THE BOY WHO WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE HELD

RIYEE'S POV

The ride back to Supreme Allievo Academy was quiet.

Not awkward. Not tense. Just... quiet. No one spoke—not Saichel, not Thres, not even Seb. Because after what we learned, there was nothing left to ask. And everything we didn't know how to say.

The van hummed along the freeway like it knew better than to interrupt.

I leaned my head against the window, eyes half-lidded as the blur of the freeway gave way to trees. Mountains in the distance. The sky no longer borrowed colors from the sun—it wore a cloak of deep navy, stitched with faint stars and the kind of quiet that only came after midnight.

And somewhere in that quiet, a different kind of memory surfaced—soft around the edges like a dream that shouldn't ache, but does anyway.

I saw it. A boy with light hazel eyes, standing beside his mother in our living room. Quiet. Still. Polite to a fault.

Too quiet for his age. Too composed for his smile.

He didn't talk much, and I was too stubborn not to try.

We were eight.

Dad had introduced him like he'd been here before. "Kian will be staying for a few days, Arielle. Be nice, alright?"

Kian.

Not Khaizer. Not KD. Not the Ice President. Just... Kian.

He had a small backpack. A shirt that looked too new, and shoes that looked too borrowed. And those eyes—light hazel, warm like faded amber lit from within—didn't match the boy trying too hard to disappear.

He didn't play with the toys I offered. Didn't eat the jelly snack I split in half. But he sat near me. On the floor. Cross-legged, watching me color.

And when I offered him a crayon, he didn't say no. Just picked one and drew a line—straight across the paper. Like he was testing what would happen if he left a mark.

"You draw weird," I told him.

He shrugged. Then I frowned. Pointed at his face. "Your smile doesn't match your eyes."

He blinked. Didn't pout. Didn't argue. Just tilted his head slightly. "I know."

He didn't even sound sad. Just... certain. Like someone had told him that before, and he'd memorized it like a fact.

We didn't talk again after that.

But that night, I woke up for water and found him sitting on the floor beside the couch where I'd fallen asleep. Eyes wide open. Staring at the door like it was supposed to break.

I didn't say anything. Neither did he.

The next morning, he was gone.

And we never spoke again. Not until now.

And that's why—when I saw him again this summer, standing in front of Mom's gate with those same watchful eyes—I froze.

Because I didn't know it then, but I know it now.

That boy never really left.

***

The words still echoed in my head, louder than the engine.

"The Halcyon Pact wants Khaizer dead..."

"A mistake they failed to erase."

"They called it Project Echo-9, Seraph Unit. Unlike prior experiments, the Seraphs weren't trained to kill without feeling. They were designed to kill because they felt."