Fake Date, Real Fate-Chapter 126: The Haunting of Table Twelve

The maître d’ led us through the dimly lit restaurant with the kind of reverent hush usually reserved for funerals or five-star tasting menus.

The place was all gleaming marble and curated shadows, the kind of establishment where every bottle of wine had a backstory and a body count.

Cameron was beside me, fixing his cufflinks like he was about to walk into a press conference instead of a blind date. He’d been annoyingly chipper the whole ride here—making jokes, poking at my eternally grim expression and humming off-key to a song that wouldn’t stop playing.

"This is going to be a disaster," I muttered as we crossed the restaurant floor, following the hostess to our reserved table.

"That’s the spirit," Cameron said cheerfully. "Remember: glare, growl, radiate jealousy. You’re the reason no other man dares flirt with me."

I didn’t respond. My focus had shifted to the table ahead.

It was already occupied.

Seated at the far end, back straight, hands folded delicately on the tablecloth, was a woman.

From the angle, I couldn’t tell if she was asleep, meditating, or plotting a meeting to make contact with the dead.

The woman seated there didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a marriage prospect—not unless the prospective groom was a Victorian mortician or a vampire lord in desperate need of a wife.

Her hair—fiery ginger—fell like curtains around her face, almost entirely hiding her features. But it wasn’t just that.

Her outfit was... something else entirely. Black silk. Billowing sleeves. A veil covered the top half of her face, sheer and shadowed. Silver trinkets hung from a chain belt at her waist, catching light like tiny cursed heirlooms. She looked like she’d been summoned rather than invited.

She looked like a corpse bride from a film.

Alright, this was officially beyond weird. I exchanged a bewildered glance with Cameron, but his expression was unreadable in the dim light. Was this... his date?

"Is that..."

"Probably one of the porcelain dolls I told you about," Cameron muttered. "Bet you a hundred she’s about to ask me my zodiac sign and rate my aura."

We reached the table.

The woman did not look up.

Cameron, ever the gentleman despite the bizarre atmosphere, sat down first. ""Sorry for keeping you waiting so lo—" he began, his voice faltering as she lifted one hand without looking up and nodded.

Polite ad mute. Fine by me.

I sat beside Cameron in silence, already regretting this entire ordeal. I pulled out my phone to check a message, when—

She started... chanting?

Not words. Not a normal language. Just—

"Ah-zekh venora... selith... selithhhh..."

The tiny silver trinkets on the woman’s belt began to chime softly, a sound that had no business existing in the still air of the restaurant. They weren’t moving. They were vibrating, resonating with her chant. A faint, cold light, like moonlight on steel, pulsed from them in time with her words.

And then, slowly, agonizingly, the figure began to raise her head.

Her neck arched back, back, back, until her face, still hidden by hair, was angled directly at the ceiling, the posture chillingly reminiscent of certain horror movie tropes I desperately didn’t want to think about right now.

"Is this a..?" I muttered to myself.

The gibberish got louder.

"Ah-zekh venora... SELITH! SELITH!" The woman’s voice, though strangely melodic, was rising to a disturbing crescendo, echoing strangely in the hushed restaurant.

Then, without warning, her head snapped down.

Straight at us.

Then she pointed at us.

Dead at us.

A single gloved hand rising in eerie, jerky motion, like she was under puppet strings.

"DIA VORATHA MEZZAKH!" she shrieked.

Cameron leapt back in his chair like he’d been electrocuted. "JESUS!"

The woman’s veil slipped a little.

And that’s when her face came into view.

Pale under the veil, eyes smudged with shadow, lips bloodless. She looked like death personified—if death had a flair for high fashion.

And she recognized us.

More importantly... Aria recognized us.

The scream cut off.

The silence that followed was apocalyptic.

Her wide, kohl-ringed eyes blinked once. Twice.

And then—

"YOU!?"

Cameron’s mouth fell open at the same time. "ARIA?!"

Then they both pointed at each other and shouted:

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?"

I rubbed a hand down my face slowly. Of course. Of course this is happening

Cameron blinked, flailing for context. "This is my blind date!"

"Well, this was MY blind date!" she snapped.

"You’re my—? You’re the girl—?!"

"Oh my GOD."

ISABELLA’S POV

I was hiding behind a heavy privacy curtain near the back hallway waiting for the signal.

Aria’s scream rang out like a banshee being exorcised by a personal stylist.

That was my cue.

I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and played the sound track we prepared and I slipped out from behind the heavy privacy curtain near the back hallway, careful to keep my movements slow and fluid as I stepped onto the restaurant floor.

My heels were off. My veil was on. The chiffon layers of my pale gown rustled around my ankles like mist, and the gauzy cape fluttered slightly with each calculated, ghost-like step.

Each step I took echoed softly, deliberately. I’d practiced this in front of Aria’s mirror before we left. She said I looked like a haunted interpretive dancer who’d drowned in the 1800s and refused to leave because the soup was cold.

Now, I hoped it read more ethereal and terrifying, less possessed ballerina on Ambien.

I began to hum lowly. A breathy, unearthly sound like a ghost who had one regret left and it involved unpaid taxes.

"Oooooohhhh... the air is... cursed..."

I walked backward.

Arms swaying at my sides in exaggerated, undulating motions.

Like ocean waves.

Like the slow beckoning of something not quite alive.

Ghost of a girl who drowned in couture.

Possessed bridesmaid from hell.

I didn’t care what I looked like. My job was simple: enter with unsettling flair, make her date question all his life choices, and make sure Aria’s date ended before it began. That was the pact.

"Return the talisman... the tea leaves have spoken..."

And then I turned, slowly, as I was supposed to. As planned.

Not fast. Not slow. Just... ominous.

I glided toward their table, my veil casting my face in translucent shadow.

That’s when I saw them.

That’s when I really saw them.

Cameron, eyes wide, looking like he’d seen a genuine banshee.

Adrien—jaw clenched, arms crossed—sat back with that same unreadable calmness he wore like armor.

Adrien.

My boyfriend.

And Cameron, his best friend.

Seated at the table Aria had dragged me to sabotage.

I froze.

Mid-glide. Mid-haunt. One arm still raised like I was mid–Renaissance painting.

My brain didn’t just short-circuit. It blue-screened, crashed, and then burst into flames. The ominous, pre-recorded soundtrack of ghostly whispers and clanking chains that I’d cued up on my phone was still playing from the pocket of my gown, a horrifyingly cheerful accompaniment to my internal implosion.

Return the talisman... the recording moaned softly. I wanted to die. I wanted to become the ghost I was pretending to be and simply evaporate.

I stared.

They stared back.

Adrien’s face was unreadable—but I knew that stillness. That quiet tension. That oh no expression he wore behind cool eyes and tight restraint.

Cameron, on the other hand, looked like he had just seen the ghost of every ex-girlfriend he’d ever wronged.

I said the only thing my rapidly imploding brain could come up with.

"...Boo."

This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by (f)reew𝒆b(n)ov𝒆l.com