Chapter 56 – The Girl and the Ghost

  Misa sat on the hard bench, hands twisted in her lap.

  The air in the chamber was sterile. Dead. Thick with bleach and sorrow.

  A small window separated her from the hallway. She heard it before she saw him—

  The slow, uneven scrape of boots on concrete.

  Then the guards' mutters.

  Then—him.

  Grim.

  Or what was left of him.

  She stared. Breath caught.

  He moved like a marionette with half-severed strings. Each step mechanical, held together by memory alone.

  Thinner. Too thin. His uniform hung on him like a corpse’s shroud.

  And his face—

  Bruises bloomed like sick flowers. His lip was split.

  His eyes weren’t empty.

  They were dead.

  The guards opened the door. He stumbled in, still cuffed.

  One shoved him toward the chair bolted opposite Misa.

  Grim didn’t resist.

  He sat.

  The door slammed.

  For a long moment, they just stared at each other through the thick glass.

  Misa raised the receiver first, hands trembling. Pressed it to her ear.

  Grim followed, slow, almost lazy.

  “Hi,” she said, too small. Too fragile.

  Grim said nothing.

  Just looked at her. Through her.

  Like something already mourned. Already buried.

  She forced a smile. The kind that cracked at the edges.

  “I… I came to see you,” she said. “It’s been a while…”

  Grim blinked.

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  Misa swallowed. Her throat burned.

  “They’re wrong about you,” she said, voice gaining edge. “You didn’t do it. I know you didn’t.”

  Still, silence.

  Her heart twisted.

  “I’ve been working on something. A way to get you out. A jailbreak, actually.”

  A small, broken laugh. “I know it sounds crazy, but… you’re not supposed to be here. Someone like you… someone who saved me, who saved others…”

  She trailed off.

  Grim moved.

  He tilted his head.

  Smiled.

  But it wasn’t his smile.

  Hollow. Crooked. A puppet’s grin.

  His voice was razor-thin.

  “Misa.”

  Her name, like an obituary.

  “Don’t waste your time,” Grim said. Almost gentle.

  “Everything they said is true.”

  Misa stared.

  “I killed them. I destroyed everything.”

  She shook her head. Mouth forming no again and again, but no sound came.

  “I deserve this,” Grim said. His smile widened, barely. “I deserve worse.”

  Tears stung, but she blinked them back.

  Because she saw it.

  The lie.

  Not in his words. In his eyes.

  In the tremble of his fingers on the receiver.

  In the way his voice cracked—just barely—at the end of each sentence.

  He wasn’t lying to her.

  He was lying to himself.

  And that—

  That was worse.

  Misa lowered the receiver to her lap. Her chest felt hollow.

  Carved out by something she couldn’t name.

  The boy who once pulled her up, who said she was strong enough to stand, who gave her a reason to breathe—

  Was gone.

  She wasn’t watching someone fall. She was watching someone who already had.

  All that remained was this husk.

  This ghost.

  Her lips moved. No words came.

  She hung up the receiver gently. Like it was sacred.

  Grim didn’t move.

  Just watched.

  Misa stood, legs unsteady.

  Pressed her hand to the glass. Once.

  Like it could reach him.

  Then she turned and walked away.

  And Grim...

  Grim just sat there.

  Smiling that broken, empty smile.

  Watching her leave.

  End of Chapter 56 – The Girl and the Ghost