price

Every step deeper into the night pulled me farther away from Rachel-who-once-existed. My name still clung to me like a ghost, but soon even that would be taken.

We moved fast, shadows within shadows, until the alleys narrowed into a street forgotten by neon and traffic. Only the hum of electricity and the drip of water from rusted pipes remained.

He stopped suddenly. His head tilted like he heard something I couldn’t. Then, without a word, he slipped his hand around my wrist and drew me into a doorway half-hidden by peeling posters.

When he finally stopped, it was in front of a warehouse with no name, no sign, just a steel door scarred by time.

Inside, the air was thick with cigarette smoke and old paper. Computers hummed. Printers rattled. Stacks of counterfeit bills, IDs, and passports were spread across tables like a grotesque library.

“This is where ghosts are made,” he murmured.

The man behind the desk barely looked up as we walked in. He had sharp eyes behind wire glasses and fingers stained with ink. The kind of man who had seen too much, but never cared enough to remember it.

The assassin spoke first, his tone flat, businesslike. “She needs to disappear. New name. New history. Clean enough to walk past border control.”

The forger leaned back in his chair, sizing me up. “American?”

“Indian,” the assassin corrected. “But flexible. Make her someone nobody looks at twice.”

The forger’s eyes lingered on me, unblinking. “You know the price?”

“I know,” the assassin said, sliding a thick envelope of cash across the table.

The man didn’t touch it. His eyes stayed locked on mine. “Money’s the easy part. Paper ghosts cost more than paper.”

My throat tightened. “What else?”

The assassin answered for him. “Proof of trust.”

The forger’s lips curled. “Exactly. Once she’s off the grid, the Bureau, the Hand, anyone who wants her...can’t find her. That makes her dangerous to me. To everyone.”

My palms were sweating. “So what do you want me to do?”

The forger leaned forward, smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers. “You burn it.”

“Burn what?”

He pulled a small metal box from under the desk and placed it in front of me. Inside: my driver’s license, my old passport, work ID, debit cards...everything that tethered me to Rachel.

“You torch it yourself. No hesitation. Because once it burns, there’s no undoing it. If you can’t, I won’t print you a thing.”

The assassin’s gaze flicked toward me, unreadable. He said nothing.

My hands shook as I held the lighter. That little flame hissed to life, a single spark ready to erase everything I was.

For a moment, I hesitated. Every photo, every number, every line of ink...they were proof I existed. Proof I mattered.

Then his voice cut through the silence. Low. Even. Unyielding.

“Rachel died the moment you called the FBI. This is just the funeral.”

I dropped the flame. The plastic curled, the paper blackened, my old life dissolving into smoke.

The forger watched until it was ash, then finally reached for the envelope of cash. His fingers flew across the keyboard, printers whirred, laminators hissed.

Hours passed in silence broken only by the clatter of machines.

I swayed. He caught me by the arm, steadying me. His grip was strong, grounding.

“It’s over,” he murmured.

The man slid a small envelope across the table. Inside...new documents. A name. A birth date. An identity that wasn’t mine.

I stared down at it, numb.

“Who am I now?”

His voice was quiet, almost reverent. “Whoever you decide to be.”

The mans..whisper followed me as we turned to leave:

“Remember this, Rachel-who-was… every new life costs the death of an old one. And one day, the price may come for you again.”

We stepped back into the night, the city pressing in around us. My head felt lighter, emptier, and yet… strangely free.

The night closed in, the neon bleeding into the dark. I clutched the envelope to my chest.

Rachel was gone.

Whoever I was now… was yet to be born

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