Page 34 of Bonepetal
Left at the yews.
Habit.
The little stone with the too-close dates waits where it always does, moss suturing its corners like a mercy that came late. My palm finds the chilled top without asking.
Memory rolls whether I invite it or not—red thread looped around a thin wrist while the elders breathedbridelike a benediction sharpened to a knife; chalk circles; salt lines; my mother combing my hair with careful fingers while she smiled at the wordsacrificeas if it meantdaughter.
She made me feel chosen. She knew I was marked. She loved me with a leash already tied to the altar ring.
Spit lands wet and decisive on the granite. “Hope the devil you praised is treating you real good in hell,” I say, and my voice doesn’t even shake.
The wind lifts the hair at my nape.
The crows click their beaks like omen drums.
Footsteps push out of the shadows behind me, bare, certain, and unhurried. The kind of stride that belongs to people who already know you’ll turn.
I look.
Finn steps out of the yews. The bone-handled knife sits at his hip like it lives there. Tattoos sleeve his arms and climb one side of his ribs in thorns and script.
No sign of Nathan’s skull turned mask.
Just some dirt along his jaw; buzz cut neat and streaks of melted wax down his hands. His eyes are hot in a way that isn’t candlelight. And his mouth, same as ever—the one that learned me, reverent when he wants, ruthless when he doesn’t.
He glances once at my mother’s stone, then at me. “She’s suffering,” he says, voice smooth as a blade. “They all are. I made sure of it.” His chin tips toward the elders’ row, toward the patch where Nathan’s name sits new and raw. “I don’t regret killing them. Any of them. I’d do it again if it meant protecting you—keeping you.” His mouth slants. “Though, their deaths weren’t as enjoyable as Nathan’s.”
The slap of that name cracks something behind my ribs. “Shut up,” I say, too fast.
He laughs low, cruel, and entertained. “You’re really going to defend him? To me?” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “He was cheating on you, Salem. Couldn’t keep it in his pants, and you want to stand here and argue his case to the man who died so you could breathe?” He steps closer, voice dropping to a blade. “I felt it. Every time you shut your eyes and let him touch you, I felt it in hell. Now I’m back and I’ll cut every wrong touch out of your skin until only mine remain.”
“God, you’re unbelievable."
“God had his chance.” He steps closer. Possession isn’t in his hands yet, it’s in the way his gaze lands and stays. “And he fucking failed you. But I didn’t. Did I, bonepetal?”
“Stay away.” I brace the words with my body, chin tipped up, hands in fists I haven’t earned.
He grins like I just threw him a ball. “Go ahead and run,” he says, coy as sin. “I’ve got another chase in me. Do you?”
I hate that my heart answersyesby slamming itself against my ribs. “You don’t own me.”
His eyes warm like a storm catching. “Say that again,” he murmurs. “Make it sound like you believe it.”
I turn and bolt.
It’s not pretty.
Wet grass grabs at my boots; stones lurch; a crow explodes from a low branch with a harsh croak that clips my ear. I tear past a weeping angel with a broken hand, juke left at a cedar, breath burning. Behind me, his footfalls never hurry.
He doesn’t sprint. He closes.
“Where are you going to run, Salem? Hmm? The fence is left,” he calls easily, like we’re discussing the weather. “Barbed. Bleed pretty if you like.”
“Go back to hell!” I throw over my shoulder. It costs me air he takes anyway.
“You always did run better angry,” he laughs, closer now. “Keep going, bonepetal. I like watching you try. Watching you lie.”
“Don’t call me—” A crow dives low, a shadow slap, and instinct tugs my head down. My toe hooks the lip of torn earth.
