Page 14 of Vows & Violence
I peel off my jacket, jaw clenched tight as the cloth beneath it pulls free with a wet, tearing sound. There’s a burn across my ribs, raw, blistered, angry. Right where the charm used to hang, that Mama Dusk gave me. The burn isn’t painful, it pulses.Rhythmic. Like something is beating from the inside out. Like somethingwants out.
Ghost stands in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes unreadable. He’s watching me. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. But that look in his eyes, it’s a grenade with the pin already pulled. That look makes me want to throw something or kiss him. Either one would work.
“You’re bleeding again,” he finally says.
I glance down. The cloth’s soaked through. Crimson spreads across my shoulder like a warning. “Yeah. And?”
He steps forward, voice low but firm. “Don’t bleed quiet. That’s when people die.”
I snort, but there’s no humor in it. Just bitterness and smoke. “Thanks for the pep talk, coach. Got a locker room speech to go with that?”
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t blink. “No. Just facts.”
His tone lands somewhere between concern and command. And I hate that it gets under my skin. That his presence makes the spiraling under my ribs tighten. Not from fear, but something else. Something louder than logic. Louder than War.
I press the cloth harder, biting back the flinch. The wound pulses again, like a drum in a ritual I don’t understand. I don't need a mirror to know the spiral is still there, carved beneath the surface, mocking me.
“I’ve been shot, stabbed, set on fire,” I mutter. “This… this is different.”
Ghost leans against the wall. He’s not relaxed. He’s braced and ready. “Yeah. Because this isn’t just a wound. It’s a message.”
I meet his eyes, and in this moment, we’re not just lovers. We’re two people marked by something neither of us signed up for.
“Message received,” I whisper.
But deep down, I know that message wasn’t meant to end with me reading it. It was meant to start something.
Once I’m patched back up again, Ghost and I move, meeting Viper outside the cemetery gates. Ghost finds an abandoned shotgun house for the three of us to hole up in near the river. It’s one of those narrow, sagging husks that looks like it could collapse if you breathe too hard. The kind of place where grief gets stuck in the walls.
The floorboards creak like they’re telling secrets. Mold snakes up the corners, and the windows are blacked out with taped trash bags, fluttering like shrouds every time the wind shifts. It smells like mildew, rot, and something sweet gone wrong. But it’s shelter for now.
I sit on the edge of what used to be a bedframe. My ribs are throbbing like a war drum under my stained tank. Ghost paces in the kitchen or what’s left of it. His shirt is ripped and hanging off one shoulder. The bruised spiral on his chest where the Medallion used to rest is dark now, like something’s drawn to it. Like it’s ripening.
Viper is standing by the boarded-up window, scanning with a sniper’s stillness. She hasn’t said much since we got back, just muttered a curse when she cleaned her blade and found the black ichor still clinging to the edge.
I finally give in and dial Poison. It only rings once before she answers. “Talk to me,” she says. No greeting. No time for it.
“We stirred something dark,” My voice feels like gravel in my throat. “Not just Vale. Something bigger.”
Ghost stops pacing and moves closer. I feel the heat of him at my back, like he doesn’t trust the room to hold itself upright without standing guard.
“They were waiting,” I continue, eyes locked on the blood-soaked rag still pressed to my shoulder. “They were wearingbones and carving symbols. One of them had Reese’s face stitched back on like a damn mask.”
Dead silence. Even the wind cuts out.
Poison’s voice returns, lower now. “We’re riding. You’ll have us before dawn.”
“Bring fire,” I tell her. “And salt.”
“The tequila too,” Ghost requests.
“Copy,” she says. “Anyone touched?”
I hesitate. Ghost’s eyes flick to mine. He doesn’t say a word, but the spiral on his chest pulses like it knows we’re talking about it.
“No bites. No cuts we didn’t cause ourselves,” I lie, because I don’t know what this is, and until I do, I’m not handing it over.
Poison doesn’t push. She knows me. She knows how I sound when I’m holding a lie. I hang up.
