nowhere to hide

Chapter Three: Nowhere to Hide

Emma sat on the edge of her bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the muted television. She hadn't slept. Not really. The sun was starting to rise, casting pale light through the thin curtains, but she didn't feel any safer.

Her phone buzzed again—another text from Liam. She didn't look at it. She couldn't.

Her apartment, which had once felt so familiar, now seemed claustrophobic. The sound of the old radiator clicking made her flinch. The creak of the floorboards near the window made her stomach tighten. She had double-locked the door, wedged a chair beneath the handle, and checked the windows three times. Still, she felt exposed.

Because the truth was, she didn't know if she was being paranoid.

Or if she was already being hunted.

She closed her eyes and took a slow, shaky breath. It's fine. You're fine. She told herself for the fifth time that morning. But her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

She finally gave in and grabbed her phone. She scrolled through the last few texts from Liam.

Hey. Just checking you got home safe.

Can we talk?

Emma. Please.

I can explain.

She read them over and over, her thumb hovering over the keyboard. Part of her wanted to call him. To demand answers. To scream at him for making her care—making her feel safe—only to shatter it all.

But she didn't text him back.

Instead, she opened her browser history. She stared at the names she had searched last night—the false identities from his safe. She copied one: Daniel Grayson. She pasted it into the search bar again.

Still nothing.

She tried the next one. Elliot Moore.

No results.

But then she hesitated. She flipped over her phone and removed the case, revealing the SIM card slot. It was something Liam had mentioned in passing once—one of those late-night conversations she hadn't thought twice about.

"You know how easy it is to track a phone, right? You ever swap out your SIM card?"

She'd laughed at the time, thinking he was just being his usual security-obsessed self.

But now she wasn't so sure.

Her hands shook as she pulled out the tiny SIM card. She stared at it for a moment, then grabbed a paperclip from the drawer and popped the card out, tossing it into the small glass of water on her nightstand. She watched it sink.

Her phone was nothing more than a slab of plastic now—useless. But she felt a little safer.

For now.

The Man at the Café

She decided she needed to get out of her apartment—to breathe. To convince herself she wasn't being followed. She threw on jeans and a coat, ignoring her reflection in the mirror. She looked tired. Hollow.

She walked two blocks down to the same café she had hidden in the night before. It was early—barely 7 a.m.—but the place was already filling with commuters. She ordered a coffee she didn't want and sat at a small table near the window, staring out into the street.

The first time she glanced at the man across the café, she didn't think anything of it. He was wearing a suit, scrolling on his phone, sipping a black coffee. Normal. Unremarkable.

But the second time she looked, he was still staring at the same screen. The screen hadn't changed.

Her stomach tightened.

She watched him from the corner of her eye. His tie was slightly crooked, and he had no briefcase—odd for someone dressed like he was on his way to work. She glanced at his shoes. Polished black leather. But the soles were worn down.

Not a businessman.

She shifted in her chair, her hands tightening around her coffee mug. She looked out the window, pretending to watch the traffic. She could see his reflection in the glass.

He wasn't looking at his phone anymore.

He was looking at her.

Her throat tightened.

She stood, her legs trembling slightly. She left the coffee on the table and walked toward the door. She didn't look at him. She forced herself to keep her pace steady, casual. Don't run. Not yet.

She crossed the street.

She didn't look back.

She turned down the next block. Fast. Too fast. Her hands were trembling as she fumbled for her keys in her coat pocket.

And then she heard it—the steady click-click-click of hard soles on pavement behind her.

Her breath caught.

He was following her.

She turned the corner sharply and entered the small pharmacy on the next block. She slipped behind a shelf of cold medicine and crouched slightly, keeping her eyes low. Her hands were clammy as she stared through the gaps in the shelves.

And then she saw him.

The man.

He entered the pharmacy, pausing briefly at the door, his eyes scanning the aisles. Slowly, he walked toward the back of the store.

Her heartbeat slammed in her chest. She should have left. Should have gone straight home. But now it was too late.

The Close Call

She moved quickly, ducking into the narrow hallway near the employee-only door. She glanced back—he was only a few feet away now.

And then her eyes fell on the emergency exit at the end of the hall.

She pushed through it.

The alarm screamed.

Emma sprinted into the alley, ignoring the sound of the metal door slamming shut behind her. She didn't look back. She didn't stop. She ran into the street, gasping for air, her hands trembling.

When she finally looked over her shoulder, the man was gone.

She stood there, breathless, hands shaking, staring at the empty street.

But she knew what she had seen.

She wasn't imagining it.

She was being followed.

The Call She Shouldn't Have Made

Her hands were still trembling when she pulled out her phone. She stared at the blank screen, the missing SIM card leaving it useless.

Without thinking, she ducked into a payphone booth on the corner. She hadn't used one in years. Her fingers shook slightly as she inserted the coins.

She dialed the number she knew by heart.

Liam.

It rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

And then his voice. Low. Breathless. "Emma?"

Her chest tightened at the sound of his voice. "Someone followed me." Her voice cracked. "I—I think I lost him, but he was there. In the café. He came after me."

There was a beat of silence. She heard Liam inhale sharply.

"Where are you?" His voice was calm, but she could hear the sharp edge beneath it.

She gave him the address, too shaken to second-guess herself.

"Stay there," he said firmly. "I'm coming."

The Shadow in the SUV

Emma hung up and stepped out of the payphone booth, glancing around the street. It was busy now—cars driving by, people walking to work.

And then she saw it.

The black SUV parked across the street.

Its windows were tinted. Too dark for her to see the driver. But she could feel the eyes behind the glass.

Watching.

Her breath caught.

She turned and walked quickly in the opposite direction. She didn't stop. She didn't look back. She kept walking. Faster.

And in the reflection of a store window, she saw the SUV pull away from the curb.

Slowly.

Following.

Liam's Plan to Fight Back: The Secrets of the Hollow Veil

"I spent years learning how to disappear. But now? Now I need them to see me."

— Liam Carter

The Awakening: More Than a Ghost

For years, Liam had believed he was simply a man running from the sins of his past. A highly skilled operative with too many names and too many enemies. But he was wrong.

He had always known there was more to the organization than government ties and financial manipulation. The way they seemed to predict events before they happened, the strange disappearances that left no traces—it never made sense.

Not until Zurich.

Because on the flash drive he stole, hidden beneath the layers of encrypted data and offshore bank records, was something far older. Something he wasn't meant to see.

A sigil.

Ancient. Obscure.

And alive.

When he first decrypted the symbol, he thought it was just a corrupted file—a series of jagged black lines, tangled and looping. But the longer he stared at it, the more he realized it was moving—the lines curling, shifting, slithering like black ink spilled into water.

And when he accidentally brushed his fingers against the screen, he felt something cold and sharp crawl up his wrist, coiling into his veins.

For a brief, blinding second, he saw the Veil.

And it saw him.

The Hollow Veil: The Truth Behind the Organization

The organization wasn't just a network of spies and black-market financiers. It was a cabal of Hollowborn, ancient beings who existed between realms, their power woven into the fabric of human history.

The Hollowborn moved through the Veil, a dimension parallel to reality—a world of endless shadow, splintered light, and fragments of forgotten gods. A place where time did not obey, and names had power.

For centuries, they had embedded themselves in human society, wearing mortal faces, building empires. Their influence bled into governments and corporations, bending reality in subtle, almost imperceptible ways. Shifting elections. Collapsing economies. Controlling chaos itself.

The flash drive Liam stole was never about financial leverage.

It was a map to the Veil.

A key.

And now that Liam had unlocked it, he was no longer just a man.

He was a doorway.

The Hollow Sigil: The Power in His Blood

The sigil Liam had accidentally activated wasn't just a symbol—it was a binding glyph. One of the lost seals meant to keep the Hollowborn contained. By breaking it, he had torn a small fracture in the Veil—a crack through which something ancient had slipped.

And it had marked him.

At first, he had ignored the symptoms: the odd static in his fingertips, the occasional flicker of objects shifting in his peripheral vision. But soon, his reflection started moving on its own. His shadow lingered even when he walked away.

And then the abilities came.

• The Step Between: He could walk into a room and no longer be seen. Not invisible—simply not noticed. The human mind glided over him like he was a shadow cast by something unremarkable.

• The Hollow Stare: If he locked eyes with someone, he could push thoughts into their mind—blur their memories, erase moments, or plant brief impressions of false realities.

• The Tethering: He could anchor himself to places—stretching his presence between two locations through the Veil. He could stand in one room and see through the walls of another.

But the abilities came at a price.

Every time he stepped through the Veil, the Hollowborn felt it.

And they were coming.

The Plan: Strike Before They Do

Liam knew the organization was already moving against him and Emma. He knew they would come swiftly, relentlessly. He couldn't run anymore.

He had to fight back.

But not as Liam Carter.

As something more.

Phase One: The Gate of Whispers

In the basement of an abandoned theater on the outskirts of Chicago, Liam had created a warded space—one he had anchored with fragments of Veilglass he had taken from Zurich. The shards, reflective and murky, were the only remnants of the Hollowborn's power he had been able to steal.

There, he had carved four sigils into the brick walls—each one crafted with his own blood. A binding glyph, a distortion mark, a forgetting seal, and a passage ward.

• The binding glyph would prevent Hollowborn from crossing into the space.

• The distortion mark would fracture the organization's ability to track him through mundane surveillance.

• The forgetting seal would make the place impossible to remember for anyone who left it.

• And the passage ward would open a small tear in the Veil, giving him access to the shadows beyond.

It was crude magic. Sloppy.

But it would hold.

Phase Two: The Bait

Liam knew they were watching Emma. They would come for her soon, and he couldn't wait until they made their move. He had to draw them out.

He left false trails—credit card charges, phony apartment leases, and fake social security records—each leading the organization to decoy locations.

He would let them find him.

He would make them think he was vulnerable. Alone.

And then he would tear them apart.

Phase Three: The Hollowblade

Liam had one advantage the organization didn't know about: the Hollowblade.

The night he escaped Zurich, he hadn't just taken the flash drive. He had also stolen a fragment of the Veil itself—a jagged shard of blackened metal wrapped in silk.

The Hollowblade wasn't a weapon in the traditional sense. It didn't cut flesh. It cut existence. With it, he could sever a man's presence from reality, leaving nothing but a flicker—a broken trace of memory that would dissolve the moment it was seen.

But using it came at a cost.

The more he wielded the blade, the thinner the fabric of his own presence became.

He was slowly becoming a ghost.

But if it meant protecting Emma, he would risk it.

Phase Four: The Reckoning

Liam's plan was ruthless. Calculated. Unforgiving.

He would:

• Use his Veil-walking abilities to infiltrate one of the organization's hidden satellite offices.

• Plant counter-sigils that would collapse their passage points, temporarily severing them from the Veil.

• Force the Hollowborn into the mortal plane—making them vulnerable.

• And then he would hunt them. One by one.

Liam knew the Hollowborn were far stronger than him. But they didn't know what he had become.

They were still looking for the man they once trained.

They didn't realize they were facing something far older.

Something far worse.

The Final Move: The Shadowmark

Liam knew he couldn't win by fighting them all.

But he didn't need to.

Because he still had the flash drive.

And on it was the name of their Architect—the Hollowborn who led the organization from behind the Veil. The one who controlled the fate of nations from the shadows.

Liam didn't intend to destroy the organization.

He intended to kill their god.

The Hollowborn and the Veil: The Truth Beyond Reality

"We are not gods. We were never gods. We are the spaces between breaths. The shadows between the stars. Forgotten because we were meant to be."

— The Architect, Hollowborn of the Third Veil

The Origin of the Hollowborn: When the Light Cracked

Before time was measured and before the first language was spoken, the Veil was whole—a flawless barrier separating the mortal plane from the realms beyond. It was not meant to be crossed.

It was a prison and a promise.

On one side: the world of men, bound by time and law, governed by mortal will.

On the other: the Hollow Realms—an expanse of splintered light and broken infinity. A place where forgotten gods drifted in pieces, their names burned out of memory.

And when the Veil was whole, these beings could only watch.

But then came the Fracture.

No one knows what caused it. Some say it was the first lie spoken by mankind, twisting reality into something it was never meant to be. Others say it was the death of the first god, whose blood etched cracks into the fabric of existence.

Whatever the cause, the result was the same.

The Veil cracked.

And through those fractures, the Hollowborn came crawling.

The Hollowborn: Unseen Lords of Reality

The Hollowborn are not demons.

They are not angels.

They are refractions of forgotten divinity—ancient fragments of power that once belonged to gods who were shattered by their own names.

When they fell through the broken Veil, they were formless. They were hunger and will and hate, incapable of existing in the mortal plane. But they learned. They shaped themselves into shadows of men, forging mortal bodies from stolen memories.

Each Hollowborn wears a mortal face, but beneath their skin, they are fragments of the Veil itself—unstable and seething with broken power.

And when they shed their mortal forms, they become something far worse:

• The Unbound: Hollowborn who exist in both planes at once, their forms flickering in and out of reality like a corrupted image.

• The Stained: Once mortal beings, corrupted by prolonged exposure to the Veil. Their bodies remain human, but their souls become half-shadow, forever bound to the Hollowborn who marked them.

• The Architects: The most ancient of their kind—the first to crawl through the Fracture. These beings are the root of the organization, their names never spoken aloud, their existence remembered only in glimpses of forgotten dreams.

The Veil: A Shattered Dimension

The Veil is not a place. It is an absence—a space that exists where there should be nothing. It is the shadow cast by the physical world, a fractured mirror that reflects everything and nothing at once.

When Liam first glimpsed it, he saw fragments of familiar things—street lamps flickering in reverse, people walking backwards, rain falling upward. But they were just echoes, bleeding through the fractures.

The true Veil is incomprehensible:

• Gravity is liquid, flowing sideways or collapsing inward.

• Light is frozen—shards of it suspended in the air like fractured glass.

• Time distorts—events folding back on themselves, moments repeating and unraveling.

The Hollowborn use the Veil to move unseen. When they step through it, they can:

• Walk between spaces in the mortal realm without crossing the distance.

• Erase their traces by stepping backward through their own footprints.

• Speak through reflections—whispering from behind mirrors, through glass, or in the shimmering surface of a still lake.

The Laws of the Veil: Fragments of Forgotten Gods

Though fractured and chaotic, the Veil still obeys certain ancient laws—remnants of the divine order that once bound it. And the Hollowborn wield these laws like weapons.

1. The Law of Names:

In the Veil, a name is more than an identity—it is a tether to existence. To know something's true name is to have power over it. This is why the Hollowborn never speak their own names aloud. Those who do become anchored, vulnerable to being bound or destroyed.

• Liam knows this. That's why he never uses his real name anymore.

• Emma doesn't realize that Liam's real name was never Liam Carter.

2. The Law of Fading:

Mortal beings cannot cross the Veil without consequence. Each time they do, they leave pieces of themselves behind.

• Memories begin to unravel, fading like smoke.

• Physical traces—fingerprints, footprints—dissolve from reality, making them untraceable.

• Eventually, those who spend too long in the Veil become half-forgotten, existing only in fragments of memory.

• This is why Liam is slowly becoming a ghost—less real every time he steps through the Veil.

3. The Law of Unmaking:

Weapons forged in the Veil do not kill. They erase.

• The Hollowblade Liam carries is a splinter of this law—a fragment of the Veil's power.

• When it strikes a living being, it does not draw blood. It cuts them from existence, erasing their presence from the moment they were wounded.

• Those erased by the Hollowblade become unremembered, their existence reduced to a faint and fleeting sense of déjà vu in the minds of those they knew.

The Architect: The Hollowborn Who Rules the Organization

At the heart of the organization is the Architect, a being that remembers when the Veil was whole. No one speaks its name—not even the Hollowborn who serve it.

The Architect is not bound by the mortal plane. It exists in two realms at once—half-mortal, half-fractured light.

• Its eyes are mirrors—reflecting back the memories of anyone it gazes upon, leaving them hollow and disoriented.

• Its voice is a broken echo—slightly delayed, as if spoken moments before or moments after it is heard.

• Its touch leaves fissures in the skin—not wounds, but slivers of the Veil itself, leaving its victims forever fractured.

The Architect's goal is simple:

• Tear the Veil completely.

• Let the Hollowborn pour into the mortal realm without limit.

• Reduce reality to a splintered reflection of itself, where names, places, and even time dissolve.

And Liam?

Liam is the only one who can stop it.

Because he carries the last piece of the Veil—the fragment hidden in the Hollowblade.

The only thing that can seal the Fracture.