Page 5 of Ghoul Me, Maybe
But I know I won’t be able to look away.
CHAPTER 3
SIENNA
The fog clings to me like an old lover I didn’t want to see again. It curls around my boots, sneaks under my jacket, slips cold fingers along my spine as I cross the rocks toward the beach I swore I’d never set foot on again.
Wrecker’s Bay hasn’t changed.
It’s still jagged cliffs and bone-colored driftwood. Still smells like brine and heartbreak. Still has that cursed wreck squatting half-drowned just offshore like a rotting carcass waiting to be picked clean.
I breathe through my nose and try not to remember the last time I was here. But the tide does it for me—pulls at my memory with the same rhythm it pulls at the sand.
Dad brought me here when I was ten. Said we were chasing history. All I remember is the sound of the waves slapping the rocks like the sea was trying to spit something out.
“Okay, old man,” I mutter, stepping over a tide pool. “I’m here. What now?”
The map’s in my pocket, corners soft from overhandling. The key’s around my neck on a leather cord because I don’t trust it not to vanish the second I look away.
I’ve got zero plan, zero backup, and about four percent belief that this is anything more than a grief-induced scavenger hunt.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
I do believe in obsession, though. And Jonas Vale was nothing if not consistent.
The tide’s out just far enough that the wreck is exposed—its ribs jutting out of the surf like the spine of some long-dead leviathan. TheRuthless Maiden, according to Dad’s notes. Sunk a hundred and fifty years ago under “mysterious circumstances.”
Yeah. So mysterious the whole town whispered about it like it was still bleeding.
I step onto the first slick rock and curse under my breath when I nearly eat shit. Graceful. Super professional. Totally normal for someone who used to rappel into underwater caves with a flashlight between her teeth.
By the time I’m standing at the edge of the wreck, my boots are soaked and my mood is somewhere betweenmurderousandwhy am I like this?
Something creaks inside the wreck. Could be the tide. Could be an echo. Could be a crab hosting a haunted house party.
I pull the map out and scan the markings. There’s an “X” scratched into the prow. I climb up over the broken hull, cursing every splinter that tries to make me part of the scenery.
That’s when I see him.
A figure.
Standing knee-deep in the waves just past the wreck.
Tall. Broad shoulders under a long coat that whips in the wind like he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Hair dark and messy. Boots half-submerged. Face shadowed. Still.
Still like death.
“Hey!” I call out.
He turns.
And oh, gods—his eyes.
They’re stormwater gray, cut through with moonlight and something older. Somethingruined. His mouth moves but I can’t hear him over the roar of my pulse in my ears.
I blink.
He’s gone.
