Page 88 of A Witchy Spell Ride
“You left a petal outside my door,” I said. “You taped a note to a card and called it romance. And you brought me a man’s face with a black X through it and called it love.” I kept my voice level. “I’m not being rude. I’m being clear.”
It took him a beat to hear that I’d saidyou.When he did, something in his posture stiffened like he’d been caught stealing small and wanted to pretend it was charity. “You’re confused,” he said gently. “He—” Chin jerked toward the bead curtain, toward Ghost’s gravity on the other side of it. “—isn’t good for you.”
“I’m an adult,” I said. “I don’t need good. I need mine.”
He blinked. “I know you better.”
“No,” I said, same tone I’d use with a child reaching for a stove. “You know a version you built in your head. She’ll never exist for you. Let her go.”
The bell chimed again. Briar breezed in with Daisy behind her, both of them loud on purpose, Daisy’s glittery tote knocking a windchime into song. Reaper’s shadow cut across the doorway like an eclipse; he didn’t enter, but the threat of him did.
Adam—Elliot—whatever he was calling himself, straightened, calculating. He glanced left, right. He had the look of a man who just realized the room had more people in it than he’d planned for.
Ghost stepped through the beads without a sound and came to stand a breath behind my shoulder. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t need to. His presence was a handprint.
“Problem?” Ghost asked conversationally.
“None,” Adam said, smile back, wrong as a painted-on window. “Just shopping.”
“Great,” Briar chirped, popping a glittered lollipop into her mouth. “Buy three bundles of ‘not today, Satan,’ get a free hex.”
Daisy set a stack of bats on the counter like a trophy. “Do you want yours with eyes or without.”
Adam’s gaze skittered. He touched the rosemary bundle again and his fingers trembled, just slightly, like he’d been holding calm too tight, and it had started to bite back.
“Selene,” he said softly, like we were alone, “you don’t have to be afraid.”
“I’m not,” I said.
Another seam. He hadn’t prepared for that answer. Hadn’t prepared for the building to love me back, for the way the room had arranged itself, for the way Ghost’s silence could fill a space more completely than a shout.
I let the silence sit. Then I slid his cheap tarot card from beneath the counter—the one with the Lovers and the black X over the man. I laid it gently on the glass between us.
“Return policy’s strict,” I said. “We don’t take back trash.”
For a heartbeat, he showed me him, not the polite veneer, not the man on the app, but the wound wearing a body. His mouth thinned. His eyes went flat. The jacket he’d bought to look like a person didn’t fit anymore.
Then it was gone. The smile came back, painted fresh.
He reached into his pocket, slow, showman slow and pulled out cash. Crisp twenties that smelled like a bank and not like a life. He set them on the counter beside the rosemary and the trash card like we were doing a normal transaction.
“I’ll take the reminder,” he said. “And I’ll see you soon.”
“No,” Ghost said, pleasant. “You won’t.”
Adam’s eyes flicked to Ghost’s. Something like recognition. Not who he was. What he was.
He picked up the rosemary. Left the card. Turned and walked out with a careful gait that said he’d calculated how many steps it took to appear unbothered. The bell chimed once, twice. The door shut. His reflection ghosted across the window and vanished into a tide of bodies.
Briar exhaled a curse. Daisy said, “Ew,” like she’d stepped in something. Reaper’s shadow moved away from the door like fog.
I realized my hands were steady.
Ghost’s weren’t. Not shaking, ready. He slid the Lovers card back into his cut, jaw set like a verdict. “Cross has his walk, his height, his shoulder hitch,” he said. “We’ve got him from three angles. Next time he steps inside.”
“There won’t be a next time,” I said.
He looked at me then, really looked and something eased under his sternum. “No,” he agreed. “There won’t.”
