Unseen Hands

DAHLIA’S POV

No badge.

No rules.

I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles went white. The silence inside my car pressed in like a weight, broken only by the faint hum of the engine. My breath fogged the windshield in short, angry bursts.

Everything I had sacrificed…gone. My relationship, my friends, my dignity… all for a force that spat me out like I was nothing.

"Look where that got you, Dahlia!" I screamed, pounding the steering wheel. My palms stung from the impact. “You threw away your life for them… and they buried you.”

The memories came in jagged flashes: the locker-room laughter, the sidelong smirks, the muttered “paper doll” comments under their breath. Dean’s face this morning when he walked out…no shouting, just the heavy finality in his eyes.

How do you recover from something like this? You don’t. Not when the world’s already decided what you are. I had no friends left to call. I’d cut them all off, pouring every second into this badge that now sat on Marshall’s desk like a tombstone over my life.

And then the cherry on top…Philips’ smirk when he dropped that gossip while I was walking out with my things. “I heard she slept her way to the file.”

If only they knew. I’ve been celibate for years, too damn focused on proving I could be more than their locker-room punchline.

I’d cut everything out for this job. Friends. Vacations. Hell, even my own boyfriend’s patience. I’d said no so many times, missed so many moments, until “us” became a fossil neither of us wanted to dig up. I thought he’d understand. That he’d see I was fighting for something bigger.

Dean deserved better. I’d given him scraps…missed anniversaries, canceled trips, cold excuses. Denied him sex. Who wouldn’t leave?

Now?

Now I had nothing.

The rage boiled hot, but beneath it was something sharper.

A vow.

No.

I am not going down like that. They took my career. They took my reputation. They needed to lose something too.

I lost, so they have to lose too.

By the time that thought crystallized, I was pulling into the parking lot of the local library. A strange choice for some. For me? Neutral ground. Quiet. Somewhere to think without the shadows of my apartment walls leaning in.

I killed the engine, stepped inside, and let the warm, papery air wrap around me. My boots clicked against the floor in the too-loud way footsteps always sound in a silent place. I found a corner table tucked between two tall shelves, dropped my bag, and sat.

The sounds of my former colleagues' laughter still echoed in my head, mingling with the image of Dean walking down the aisle with someone else who is obviously not me.

For half a second, a thought struck me: What if I just begged him to take me back? I mean, since I’ve lost my job, there won’t be any excuses and there won’t be anything keeping us apart.

But no. The man deserved happiness, and I wasn’t the kind of broken he could fix.

The ticking clock above the reference desk seemed to gnaw at the minutes. My thoughts swirled faster than I could sort them…how to hit back, who to hit first, how to make them hurt. Somewhere between one breath and the next, exhaustion caught me.

I rested my head on the desk, setting my phone alarm so I wouldn’t overstay past closing.

But, I never heard it ring.

“Dahlia.”

The voice was a thread of air, curling into my ear like breath.

My eyes snapped open. The library was dark. Too dark.

I jerked upright, heart already hammering. The wall clock wasn’t ticking anymore. My phone screen glared up at me….2:03 AM.

That wasn’t right.

It was 12:17 PM when I sat down a few minutes ago. Right?

I checked my wristwatch. Same thing.

“What the hell…” My voice fell flat in the emptiness.

Had I really been out for hours? Where was the librarian? The security guard? Why hadn’t anyone woken me?

Shoving my phone into my pocket, I grabbed my bag and started toward the front doors. The glass windows glimmered faintly with the sick yellow of the streetlamps outside.

“Dahlia.”

This time, it was right behind me.

I spun. Empty air.

Footsteps echoed faintly ahead. Maybe that is the security man.

I started walking faster. The hair on my arms rose. My feet moved faster, the echo of each step ricocheting between shelves.

Then something cold wrapped around my right ankle just as I got closer to the exit.

“Are you fucking kidding…”

The word lodged in my throat before I could finish it.

A hand.

Bloated, pale, the skin warped and puckered like it had been soaking in saltwater for years. Strings of slimy green weeds coiled around the wrist, dripping onto the carpet.

The fingers tightened.

I kicked and yanked, but the grip was iron. My bag tumbled off my shoulder, spilling pens and scraps of paper across the floor.

“Is this some kind of—”

The rest tore away as the hand wrenched me backward, dragging me down an aisle. My nails scraped wood as I caught the lip of a shelf, muscles screaming with the strain.

“This isn’t funny! I’m a cop! I’ll get your asses thrown in jail if you don’t stop this!”

The pulling stopped.

Did I scare them away?

I froze, chest heaving, ears straining. Nothing. Just my own breathing. Slowly, I straightened. Who could be playing such a humorless prank?

That’s when I heard it. High-pitched. Playful.

A child’s giggle, light and wet, like bubbles popping under water.

Then the slap-slap of small, bare feet running across the carpet. Except each step squished, the sound thick with waterlogged weight.

Goosebumps crawled up my neck.

This isn’t a scene from a horror movie, Dahlia, I told myself. The supernatural doesn’t exist. There are no such things as ghosts.

The giggle came again, this time behind me.

“Who’s there? Who set you up for this? Come out now…if you do, I won’t press charges,” I warned, my voice sharp and steady.

I reached under my coat and unclipped the thigh holster. Not my registered service weapon…turned that in before leaving the station. This was my own. Private. Loaded.

I moved low and slow, each step calculated. My breath matched my pacing, my finger resting on the trigger guard as I rounded the next corner.

And froze.

A man stood at the far end of the aisle, his features swallowed by the darkness. He held a young girl by the neck, a gun pressed to her temple.

“Hey!” My voice cut through the air, sharp and commanding. “Let her go…now. Put down the weapon, and I’ll act like none of this ever happened. Walk away, and no one gets hurt.”

The figure tilted his head slowly, like someone sizing up a stranger in a dark alley…calm, cold, and impossible to read. Then, without warning, he let the girl drop to the ground as if she were nothing.…and charged.

I fired, aiming for his leg. The bullet hit, but he didn’t slow. I fired again, aiming for his head. This time he dropped, lifeless, skidding to a stop just feet from me.

I staggered back, chest heaving, then looked toward the girl to make sure she’s okay. She lay still, eyes locked on mine, lips moving like she was speaking at triple speed.

Weird. Too weird. I looked away, down at the man.

Without stopping to think clearly, my hand went to my phone. I should call it in.

The dispatcher’s voice was steady: “911 What’s your emergency?”

I crouched, reaching for the hood over his head.

“I…there’s a man down. He had a hostage, I…” My voice faltered as the fabric fell away, revealing his face.

Blood pooled around his head, dark and sticky.

My throat closed.

“Ma’am?” the voice on the line pressed.

The phone slipped from my hand and clattered to the floor.

“Dean?”