Chapter 45: Quiet Soil, Loud Hearts
The next morning, they went out for supplies.
For the first time, Selene let Aria come along.
The city had quieted.
Not with peace — but with dread. The kind that slinks beneath your skin and nestles in your bones, the kind that makes even daylight feel haunted. The wind no longer carried songs, only warnings. It whispered through shattered windows and empty alleyways, dragging with it the ghosts of everything that once was.
Selene walked ahead, blade resting at her side like a loyal extension of herself. Her steps were purposeful, soundless on cracked pavement, her eyes slicing through shadow like a sniper's aim. She didn't glance back. She didn't need to.
Aria followed, duffel slung over her shoulder, her boots crunching softly over broken glass. Her fingers curled loosely, glowing slightly at the tips, that pocket dimension still humming just beneath her skin. It had grown again. She could feel it pulsing with a new kind of awareness — like it was listening to her thoughts, adapting in secret.
"When I opened it earlier… my paradise dimension," she murmured, eyes scanning the road as they walked. "It felt different. There's a lake now. Hills. Trees that weren't there yesterday. It's like it's… alive."
Selene's steps didn't falter, but her gaze flicked toward Aria, a glimmer of something unreadable behind her cool exterior. "It's adapting to you."
"I didn't ask it to."
"You didn't have to."
Aria frowned, voice soft. "But how? Why now?"
"You're evolving faster than last time."
That last word — last — hung in the air like a bell toll. Neither of them elaborated, though the weight of another lifetime pulled quietly between their bodies.
Selene slowed just enough to speak with more intent. "Listen to me. You can't rely on that power — not all the time. Not until you understand it. And not where anyone can see."
"Why?" Aria asked, brows furrowed. "It's mine."
Selene turned to face her fully, only a breath apart now, her voice low and unflinching. "Because something that powerful… others will want it. And they won't ask nicely. They'll use you, twist you. And you won't even know it's happening until it's too late."
Her fingers brushed Aria's shoulder — barely a touch, but grounding. Warm where everything else about Selene felt like winter. "You'll have your freedom. One day. But right now? You hide what you can't afford to lose."
They moved again.
The destination: an abandoned gardening center on the edge of the block. The old greenhouse loomed in the distance, overtaken by ivy and time. Glass skeletons glinted under the gray morning sky, and the air smelled of moss, wet soil, and the brittle promise of something still growing.
Selene stepped forward, slicing down a twitching infected as easily as one would swat a fly. Clean. Cold. Unbothered.
Aria didn't flinch.
They scavenged quietly — fertilizer, seeds, half-rusted tools, sealed bags of soil still usable. The good ones vanished into Aria's pocket dimension with a flick of her fingers, vanishing into organized corners she barely had to think about. Her dimension did the sorting for her now — old and new, broken and whole, each in their place like it knew what she needed.
Selene knelt to examine a shelf of sprouting trays. "You planning on starting a garden in there?"
"Maybe," Aria replied. "Feels like it wants one."
Selene quirked a brow, amused. "Wants one?"
Aria shrugged, a smile tugging at her lips. "It's growing without me doing anything. It made a cabin last night. I didn't build it."
Selene looked at her — longer this time. "Then it's listening to you."
"Or dreaming with me," Aria added, voice distant.
They kept moving. Scooping up cracked bags of tools, a manual seed spreader, a pair of shears that still clicked open like new. It felt domestic, strange. As if the world hadn't ended outside. As if things could be normal inside that otherworldly space only Aria could open.
They were planting something.
Hope, maybe.
Later, they climbed to the rooftop of the building next door, their bags full, the sun now bleeding into dusk. The city stretched before them like a painting abandoned mid - brushstroke — half - built, half - ruined, aching with the silence of things lost.
Aria leaned back on her elbows, staring at the darkening sky. Her jacket slipped off one shoulder, exposing warm skin to the breeze. She didn't fix it. She didn't care.
"I saw something else in the dimension," she said quietly. "That cabin I mentioned — it had two chairs on the porch. Not one. Two."
Selene didn't turn, but her fingers tensed where they rested on her knee. "It's waiting."
"For who?"
Selene finally met her eyes. "You know who."
Aria swallowed. The air between them buzzed like something live. "It's mine," she said, more to herself than anything.
"It always was."
"You sound so sure."
Selene tilted her head. "I've been sure for longer than you think."
The words sat between them like an open wound. Aria shifted closer, the space between their shoulders disappearing. She didn't touch — but her warmth kissed Selene's sleeve, a deliberate proximity.
"You've been weird lately," Aria said, not quite looking at her.
"Weird?" Selene arched a brow.
"Distant," Aria clarified. "Avoidant. And don't pretend you haven't noticed. You pull away every time we get too close."
"I don't pull away."
"You do. After you kissed me last time, you avoided my room for three nights."
Selene was quiet for a long moment. Her voice came out low. "It's not avoidance. It's restraint."
"Oh, so it's noble suffering now?" Aria teased, leaning in, her shoulder brushing Selene's arm deliberately. "Should I thank you for not climbing into bed with me?"
Selene smirked. Just a little. "Don't tempt me."
"Who said I wasn't?"
Selene's head turned sharply. Their eyes met — wild emerald and soft silver — and suddenly the rooftop felt too small for the heat rising between them
"You don't get it," Selene said finally, her voice nearly a whisper. "I can't just want you."
"Then stop pretending you don't."
Aria's words landed like a dare. Her breath hitched slightly, her pulse pounding in her neck. She wasn't sure what she was asking for. Only that her skin burned for contact, and her heart ached from the distance.
Selene's hand moved — just barely — but didn't reach for her.
"I remember how you looked at me," Aria continued, softer now. "Back when you couldn't get enough. I remember what your hands felt like."
Selene's jaw tightened.
"I remember what your voice sounded like when you whispered my name."
Still no movement.
"I ache, Selene," Aria whispered. "And I don't know if it's for you or because of you."
That broke something.
Selene turned, her hand lifting — then stopping just short of Aria's cheek. Her fingertips hovered, trembling, as if even that closeness was too dangerous. "I want to kiss you," she confessed. "But if I start again… I won't stop."
Aria's breath shuddered. "Maybe I don't want you to stop."
Selene leaned in, close enough that Aria could feel her breath.
Then she whispered, "Not yet."
Aria made a soft, wounded sound.
"You're not ready," Selene murmured. "Not for everything I want to do to you."
"And you think I don't want it?" Aria hissed.
Selene gave her a look — smoldering, laced with hunger. "You want the idea of me. But the reality?" She leaned in, lips nearly brushing Aria's ear. "The reality will ruin you."
Aria's thighs pressed together involuntarily.
Selene chuckled darkly, catching the motion. "See?"
"You're evil."
"I'm patient."
Aria bit her lip, exhaling slowly. "One day you'll beg."
Selene smirked. "One day you'll scream."
They sat like that in tense silence, the air between them taut with promise and restraint. Beneath them, the city breathed in shadow.
And inside both of them, something stirred — hungry, waiting.
Something that wouldn't stay quiet forever.