Page 10 of Jayson
I catch her before she hits the ground again.
“What now?” I bark, glancing down.
She’s cradling her foot off the mud, jaw tight. “I think I twisted it.”
Of course she did. OfcourseI chased her through a fucking forest, and now she’s broken.
“You’re a mess,” I mutter, more to myself than her.
Mud streaks her shirt, clings to her bare thighs, drips in fat droplets from her hair. She looks like something dragged from the grave.
“So are you,” she snaps, voice raw, as I drag her toward the slope—half-carrying her now, her limp dragging every few steps like an anchor on my patience.
She stumbles. I swear under my breath and hook an arm around her waist, lifting her more than leading her.
“You always this difficult,” I grind out, “or do I just bring out the best in you?”
She doesn’t answer me, and her silence lingers like a challenge between us.
And I’m the idiot who keeps rising to it.
We climb the incline together—her stumbling, me steadying. I keep my hand twisted in her nightshirt like a leash. Themansion glowers through the trees, windows burning faint with grandmother’s lamplight. Feels like it’s judging me too.
Turmoil rattles in my skull:You signed your own death warrant when you took the girl. One day she’ll slit your throat or save your soul.
I tighten my grip until my knuckles whiten. Mud squelches under every step. The girl flinches when distant lightning forks the sky, illuminating the path: two figures, caked in filth, tethered by something darker than sin.
I lean down, voice soft but steel-lined. “Run again, and I’ll chain you to my bed.”
She shivers at my words.
I drag my ruined prize along, every instinct screaming that Ghost was right. I definitely fucked up.
But hell if I know what to do with her now.
5
JAYSON
We walk up the stone steps slowly, a slowness that isn’t about pace but gravity. Like the weight of the past makes the air heavier the closer we get. My boots scuff the moss that’s crept over the edges of the old stone, each step a memory clawing its way back.
At the top, I reach for the hidden key, still tucked inside the cracked brick above the doorframe, half-swallowed by ivy grown thick with time.
I shove open the front door. It gives with a long, low groan—wood and iron straining like they remember me. Like the house itself isn't sure it wants me back.
The air spills out thick and musty, tasting of old, forgotten memories. I step inside.
And the house… exhales. Not a welcome. Not forgiveness. Just recognition. The kind that makes your skin crawl.
Footsteps echo above us—measured and deliberate. Then comes the sharp, unmistakable tap of a cane tapping against polished floorboards.
She appears at the top of the staircase like a ghost conjured from another lifetime. Elegant. Imposing. Draped in a silk robethe color of ashes, as though mourning something she never planned to bury. Her silver hair is pinned with surgical precision, not a strand out of place. But it’s her eyes that stop everything—piercing and cold, like twin blades honed on disappointment.
She studies me like I’m a painting hung crooked on a wall.
“Well,” she says at last, her voice rich and dry with age. “The prodigal son returns.”
Her gaze flicks to the girl, trailing over her like a tailor assessing damaged fabric.
