Page 3 of Vows & Violence
Ghost hears my breath hitch, but he doesn’t ask why. Instead, he sits on the edge of the concrete ledge overlooking the Mississippi. Hands braced behind him, his back to the city. Like the river’s the only thing keeping him from unraveling.
I don’t sit. I pace. One, two, three steps toward the edge. The dock creaks under my boots, the wind kicking my hair into my face.
“You said it felt like a place,” I say without looking at him. “The thing in the dream.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Not here. Not New Orleans. But familiar. Like something Ialmostremember. Something buried.”
I finally sit beside him. Close, but not touching. We stare at the slow, dark pull of the water.
“You think someone did something to you?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I mean, yeah. Probably. When Vale turned, when Raven turned, nothing about that part of my life makes sense anymore.”
“You think you were drugged?”
He exhales hard. “It’s not drugs. Or not just that. This... whatever this is, it feels like it’s watching methroughthem. Vale and Raven. Like they’re puppets, and something worse is pulling strings.”
I go still. “You think this is supernatural.”
He turns his head toward me. Not mockingly. Not dismissive.
“I don’t know what I believe. I used to think everything could be explained. Motive. Evidence. The chain of violence. But now? I’m not so sure. This,” Ghost holds up his palm, clean now but tight with memory. “This doesn’t feel like something I can arrest or reason with.”
We sit with that. The idea that somethingelseis hunting him, and maybe us by extension.
“The Non Cras doesn’t scare easily,” I say after a long stretch. “We’ve killed men who thought they were gods.”
“Yeah. But have you ever fought something that doesn’t bleed?”
That lands differently, so I don’t answer.
Ghost shifts beside me, voice softer now. “When you saw me bloody and shaking, not knowing what the hell happened, what did you feel?”
I blink slowly. “Rage,” I admit. “Fear. Notofyou, but for you.”
That surprises him. He turns to really look at me. “You think I can be saved?”
I face him square. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
There’s a long pause. Ghost nods once, sharp, like sealing a pact. “So what happens now?”
“Now,” I say, standing, “we go back. We regroup. Gypsy’s been digging into the symbols Raven left behind. Viper’s checking the old safehouse footage. If something’s pulling strings, we’ll find it.”
“And if it’s not something we can kill?”
I meet Ghost’s gaze. Cold. Certain. “Then we learn how.”
Ghost stands beside me, brushing dust from his jeans. For a second, he looks like the Ghost I first met, dangerous and ready to burn everything down.
But then he glances at me. And just for a breath, he lets himself be scared.
“You think it’s coming back tonight?” he asks.
“No,” I say, starting toward the bikes. I catch my reflection in the chrome, and a dark shadow passes over my features. “I think it never left.”
Chapter Two
Phoenix
