Page 38 of Vows & Violence
The Hollow Sons think they can carve symbols into people’s skin and call it prophecy. Think they can usehimto break me.
They don't understand I’m already broken. Every time I walk away from him. Every time I tell myself I can do this life without him in it.
I breathe slow, tasting blood on the back of my tongue. Behind me, Wendigo’s waiting with Gypsy. Scissors wants to breach together. Poison gives the green light, but this one’s mine.
“Don’t follow me,” I tell them.
“Phoenix,” Gypsy starts.
“No.” I meet her eyes, calm and cold. “If you hear shots, burn it down.”
Wendigo nods. She knows that sometimes vengeance doesn’t need backup. Sometimes it needs a ghost.
I move. My boots are silent over cracked tile. My Glock is in one hand, my blade in the other, before the door even appears in the torchlight. I count the guards. Four near the altar, two on the outer ring. The leader is in front of Ghost, lifting that twisted knife like he’s about to carve his name into a goddamn memory.
I move fast and quietly.
A loud boom vibrates through the building. An explosion hits. Not mine, but Gypsy’s work, detonates under the south wing. The chamber shakes like the world is shifting beneath us. Dust rains from the ceiling like ash from heaven.
And that’s when I step in. The door slams behind me. Smoke curls at my heels. I become something more than a woman. More than a soldier. More than a sinner.
I becomehis.
Ghost is on his knees, arms tied, eyes blazing even half-drugged. I take one look and everything I am focusing on is a single point.
“Step away from him,” I growl.
The leader turns, his knife gleaming. His mouth moves, some bullshit about balance and sacrifice. I’ve heard it before. From terrorists, from cult leaders, from men who think power comes from a blade instead of the hand that wields it.
He thinks he has control, but he doesn’t.
“Then let’s balance this,” I say, and my blade sings through the air.
It sinks into his throat. And then hell opens up. They rush me, but they’re too slow.
One goes down from a clean bullet to the chest. Another I take by the wrist, twisting hard until I hear the pop, then shove him into the next bastard charging me. They both crash into the altar. Screams mix with fire and footsteps and fear.
All I see is him. Ghost fights to stand. His muscles twitch like he’s breaking through chains. When one of the Hollow Sons lunges toward him, machete high, I don’t hesitate.
Three shots. Center mass. Ghost looks at me.
“You good?” I shout, even as I rip my second blade free and shove it into a bastard’s ribs.
“Better now,” he rasps.
We fall into rhythm. Our rhythm. Not chaos. Not noise.Musicofour own kind. A war song we move to. I protect, Ghost punishes. Back to back, spinning, striking, and bleeding for something that isn’t vengeance this time.
It’s love.
No other word is strong enough for what I feel when I see him hurt. When I see him rise anyway. When he picks up a machete and dares the world to try him again.
We cut them down. One by one. Blood spills across the altar they built for sacrifice. Only we’re not the ones being sacrificed anymore.
They are.
And when the last one falls, when silence rings louder than screams, I cross the room and find Dean ‘Ghost’ Mercer still standing. My Knightmare in a world of chaos.
“You came for me,” Ghost says in a deep voice. I don’t answer. I’m too busy scanning him for wounds, for breaks, for anything I can’t fix. “Phoenix, I’m fine.”
