Page 31 of Vows & Violence
I watch him from the hallway, arms crossed, heart rattling in my ribs like it’s trying to break free. His silence is worse than shouting. Worse than bleeding. He’s too still. Like he’s holding his breath inside his own skin. Like, he doesn’t trust what’s living there anymore.
When I finally pull him to bed, it’s not softness or comfort. It’s containment.
Ghost mutters something low under his breath. I don’t catch all of it, just the words ‘blood’ and ‘hollow’, but his voice sounds like it’s been scraped raw.
I don’t sleep. I lay there beside him, the sheets tangled between us, Glock within reach, eyes fixed on the slow rise and fall of his chest. Counting each breath like it’s the only thread keeping this moment from splitting open. I don’t know what’s happening to him. But I do know whatever’s reaching for Ghost, it doesn’t get to have him because he is mine.
It’s the sound of his breathing that changes. It goes from slow and steady to fast and erratic. Like someone panting through clenched teeth.
“Blood for the Hollow,” he whispers.
I sit up, every nerve in my body screaming awake.
He’s upright. Eyes wide open, but there’s no one behind them. “She rides with Death,” he murmurs. And then his hand is on my throat. It’s not rage. It’s not passion. It’s not Ghost.
His grip tightens, slow but deliberate, like he’s following a command echoing in his bones.
I react without thinking and slam my forearm against his wrist. I twist and send my knee into his ribs. Ghost doesn’t even grunt. He just tilts his head, still blank-eyed, reaching again like I’m something that needs to be erased.
I grab the knife from under my pillow and press the tip right into the soft flesh between his ribs. Hard enough to break skin. “Dean,” I hiss. “Come back.”
Nothing.
So I shout it this time. “GHOST!”
His body seizes like someone flipped a switch. He jerks back, blinking rapidly. His hands tremble, then go slack. He stares at me, blood on his chest, my knife still shaking in my grip.
“What the hell?” his voice breaks. “What did I do?”
I don’t answer. I just drop the blade and grab his face, forcing him to see me, feel me. “You’re here,” I whisper, heart pounding. “You’re still here.”
He wraps his arms around me so tightly I can barely breathe, like he’s trying to anchor himself to something solid. “I didn’t mean… God, Phoenix, I didn’t mean to…”
“I know,” I say. But my hands are still shaking. My throat still aches.
And in the silence that follows, I can’t stop hearing those words in his voice.She rides with Death. He is already ours.
No. Not yet. Not on my watch.
Ghost’s hand hovers at his throat like he’s scared of his own skin. I want to tell him it wasn’t his fault. But I’m not sure which of us needs to hear it more.
I lie awake beside him, still. Breathing. Watching. Waiting for the next time the Hollow tries to pull him back.
Chapter Fifteen
Phoenix
Ghost is still asleep when I slip out of bed. If you can call it sleep. It’s more like a ceasefire. His face is slack, but not peaceful. Like whatever war tore through him last night is just biding its time until the next strike. The blood on his chest dried in streaks I didn’t clean. Not because I forgot, but because I needed to see it when I opened my eyes. I need to remember how far it almost went.
I stand in the doorway, watching Ghost’s chest rise and fall in a slow and unsteady rhythm. I want to believe he’s still him. Whatever flickered across his face, whatever shadow whispered through his voice last night didn’t root itself too deeply. But that lie tastes stale in my mouth.
Ghost didn’t touch me with rage or confusion or even panic. He touched me like he wasn’t in there at all. Like his body was on loan to someone else.
I’ve seen that look before. Not in him, but on the battlefield. In an ops, they swore were classified and sealed.
Psych breaks that didn’t make sense. Soldiers who stopped blinking. Men who said they felt something crawling behind their eyes.
They buried the files. Burned the evidence. But they didn’t kill the science.
