Page 62 of A Witchy Spell Ride
“Go away,” Briar and I said in unison. He grinned and did.
We ate on the couch and watched the clubhouse wake like a beast rolling its shoulders. The party would happen. I’d be there.He’d be out there. And between those truths lay the only one I could stand on: I refused to disappear.
“I’m scared,” I said, because someone needed to hear me say it.
“I know,” Briar said. “You’re brave.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It never was.”
She squeezed my knee. “He tried to turn love into a weapon. We’ll hand it back as a mirror. He won’t like what he sees.”
“He’ll see Ghost,” I said.
“He’ll see all of you,” she corrected gently. “The parts that don’t beg.”
Footsteps in the hall. Ghost. Like I’d conjured him. He paused, took in the scene, coffee, black-iced donut, sigils and sarcasm, and the barest smile touched his mouth.
“Ready?” he asked me.
“No,” I said. “Go anyway.”
He held out his hand. I took it.
We stood.
The room didn’t get bigger.
I did.
And for the first time since the envelope, since the nailed thread, since the photo taken in the dark, I felt the shape of my future settle like a weight I could carry.
Not because the danger had vanished.
Because I had stopped shrinking to fit it.
Chapter Seventeen
Ghost
Cross and I had narrowed it down to three.
Three possible names tied to three burner email accounts and one prepaid card used to buy a crystal pendant from a shop two doors down from Selene’s.
All three used the same fake last name: Lane.
Only one of them matched the time stamp and camera angle from the footage Cross scraped off a neighboring antique shop’s grainy security feed.
Adam Lane.
Square jaw, too-clean sneakers, khaki fucking cargo pants.
The man who didn’t belong in the Quarter.
The man who watched my girl like he’d bought her.
We were close.
