Page 3 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
She walks like she doesn’t care who’s watching. Which means she knows they are.
The girl—no, woman—steps onto the edge of Wrecker’s Bay like she owns it. Dark hair twisted in a knot, shoulders set like a soldier, and a scar slicing her brow like punctuation. She looks like she’s been punched by the world and decided to punch back twice as hard.
And gods help me, Ifeelher.
Like a lightning strike down my spine, my senses scream awake. My vision sharpens past the usual dream-haze. The colors deepen. The rot in the sand, the brine in the wind, the long, long hunger in my chest—I feelallof it, all at once. It’s like waking up in the middle of drowning.
I stagger.
She doesn’t see me. Of course she doesn’t. No one’s seen me in a hundred and fifty years.
But I see her.
I see her because something in the damn veil’s tearing at the seams—and she’s the needle.
TheMaidengroans behind me. The shattered hull, wrecked on the rocks, pulses once. I can feel her agony echo up my spine. She remembers too. The betrayal, the relic, the blood.
“Sienna,” I breathe, not knowing where the name comes from.
She’s standing near the same spot I died. Well, part of me died. The rest of me got caught in this gods-forsaken loop. Wake with the tide. Drift through the mist. Forget. Repeat.
But now…
Now I remember her eyes.
Not her face. Not her name, even. But hereyes. They belong to the man who cursed me. Jonas Vale.
“Impossible,” I growl, walking toward her. Or, more accurately, letting the fog drag me toward her like a dog on a chain.
Each step I take, more of me sharpens. The fog that’s wrapped me like a shroud starts peeling back.
The beach tilts.
I grab a mossy stone to keep myself upright and hiss when I feel it.Feel. That hasn’t happened in decades. Not real touch, not weight, not pressure. The veil’s thinning, and she’s the crack letting the storm through.
I’m close enough to see the map in her hand now. Her fingers curl around it like it’s made of bone. She’s muttering under her breath, something bitter and sarcastic. I like her already.
The relic’s near.
I can smell it—brimstone and salt, and something older, darker. It’s calling to me, like it always does.
“Turn back,” I whisper, voice like gravel and fog.
She doesn’t hear it. Not yet. But her spine stiffens like something cold brushed against her soul.
Then she bolts. Smart girl.
I stay rooted in place, heart hammering in a body that hasn’t had a heartbeat in over a century. I press a palm to my chest just to be sure. Nothing. No thrum. Just magic and rage and something else I don’t dare name yet.
A shape forms in the surf. A figure with no face, walking where no man should walk.
I stiffen.
Not mine.
I know every ghost who haunts this beach, every memory stuck in the rocks, every echo in the sea. This one? This one doesn’t belong.
“You feel it too,” I say aloud, turning to face it.
