Page 46 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
Mira runs out of the shop across the street, face pale, apron flapping. Elias is behind her, already looking for me like he knew.
I sit up, coughing, ears ringing.
“Okay,” I croak. “So that’s a no on the extended warranty.”
Elias drops to his knees beside me. “You’re bleeding.”
“Wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t.”
His hands shake as he presses a cloth to my temple. “What happened?”
“I think... I just got a second opinion on that ‘walk away’ offer.”
Mira’s eyes go wide. “The Collector?”
“Goes by Mr. Grey now,” I mutter. “Real upgrade.”
Elias’s jaw flexes. His voice drops into something low and lethal. “He touched you?”
“No,” I say. “But he found me. And now my car’s toast. So yeah—I think the bastard just started his game.”
Elias lifts me gently.
“Then we finish it.”
Later, after the fire’s out and the tow truck’s dragged what’s left of my Civic into a scrapyard-shaped afterlife, we sit behindMira’s shop on a warped wooden bench. The air still smells like scorched rubber and burnt coffee.
Elias hasn’t spoken in ten minutes.
Which, for him, is a red flag wrapped in ominous silence.
“You gonna brood me into safety, or what?” I ask, voice dry.
He doesn’t smile. Not even a twitch.
Instead, he looks at me like I’m glass and the wind’s getting ideas.
“I should’ve been faster,” he mutters.
I tilt my head. “You weren’t eventhere.”
“I felt it,” he says. “The second it happened. Like the tide pulled wrong.”
I rest my arms on my knees, still jittery from the explosion. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It’s myjobto protect you.”
“No, it’s not,” I snap. “I didn’t sign you up for?—”
“Yes, you did.” He finally turns to me, eyes storm-dark. “When you refused to walk away. When you stood between me and Mira. When you let me kiss you like I was something real.”
I freeze.
Not because he’s wrong.
Because he’stooright.
He exhales like the weight of the world is catching up with him.
