Page 33 of Vows & Violence
“I’ll bring him back,” I say without blinking.
“And if you can’t?”
My answer is a whisper wrapped in steel. “Then I’ll go wherever they sent him and drag him back with my bare hands.”
Ghost slept for six hours. That was it. Long enough for the blood to dry, for his skin to cool, for the quiet in his head to either settle or regroup. He didn’t scream when he woke. Didn’t punch or lash out. Just sat there on the edge of the bed, bare feet on cold tile, hands braced on his knees like he wasn’t sure if he were about to stand up or fall apart.
I didn’t touch him. Didn’t speak. Not until he looked up at me with eyes that still flickered like static behind glass. “I need to know what’s happening to me.”
So I take Ghost’s hand and lead him into the kitchen with the rest of my sisters. Poison watches him carefully, while Viper, Scissors and Gypsy continue to unlock the web of deceit MV uncovered.
“Project Hollow Response,” I respond when we’re stopped in front of the laptop. “MV found the files. It wasn’t easy, not even in the corners where they usually lurk. It was buried in a shell corporation six doors removed from the government. Red RiverMedical was funded through federal emergency response grants. The program was initiated twelve years ago in major metro precincts, including yours.”
Ghost runs his hand through his brown hair and sits down on the chair, pulling me into his lap. “Yeah, I remember this.”
MV’s voice comes through the speakers again.“I’m sorry to have to make you live through this again, Ghost, but it’s important we get all the facts I can’t find. What I did find was that it’s a behavioral override via trauma-loop stimuli. A synthetic serotonin cocktail to boost aggression-response, with instinct remapping through augmented threat exposure.”
I sit on Ghost’s lap, stunned. His hands tighten around my waist, in fear that I’ll run away from him. They didn’t just condition men to fight. They trained them to become trigger weapons torespondwhen a specific sight, sound, or phrase passed their threshold. To act without hesitation. To forget who they are.
Ghost sits still while MV reads it out loud, his jaw is locked so tight I’d think he’d crack teeth. I watch the file’s contents bleed across the screen, and I feel something rise in my throat that I can’t swallow down.
They did this to him. And someone, either Vale, the Hollow Sons, hell, maybe both, is reawakening it.
“You really think they’re using his past precinct’s trial to manipulate him?” Wendigo asks, arms crossed, as we huddle in the kitchen.
“Not think,” I snap. “Iknow.”
Gypsy nods grimly. “I cross-referenced the chemical formula they tested with a sample I found at the warehouse raid. The residue Vale’s guys left, it shares three key markers.”
“So, they’re reactivating him like some kind of sleeper agent?” Viper asks, intrigued.
Poison cuts in. “They’re trying to erode who he is. Make him doubt himself. Make us doubt him. That’s how you dismantle loyalty, start by shattering the self.”
“She rides with Death. He is already ours.” Scissors reads the spray-painted message again from the photo that Viper printed.
“Targeted,” Viper says. “They knew he’d show up. They wanted him to see that. Feel it.”
“And what?” Kitty asks. “You think they’ve got a remote control for his brain?”
“No,” I say. “They’ve got something worse.” Everyone looks at me. “They’ve got ghosts.”
We all grew up with monsters. We all fought to survive. But what they’re doing to Ghost isn’t just about control, it’s annihilation. They want to wipe him from the inside out. Strip him down until there’s nothing left but violence they can point like a gun.
But the thing they didn’t count on? Me.
It’s nearly midnight when the house finally settles.
The MC’s downstairs, posted up in rotations. Viper and Gypsy are running decryptions on Vale’s last few message interceptions. Wendigo’s back on surveillance sweep, like she’s itching for someone to try them again.
Ghost is sitting on the edge of our bed again. He hasn’t said a word since we left the kitchen.
I shut the door behind me, cross the room, and stand in front of him. “You didn’t touch your food.”
He shrugs. “Didn’t feel hungry.”
“You sleep?”
Another shrug.
