Page 16 of Vows & Violence
I blink. “How poetic.”
“They’ve named you, Nix,the Hollow Key.” The phrase hits harder than I want it to. There’s a deep, nauseating finality to it.Like being crowned queen of a kingdom built from graves.“And Ghost?”MV adds.“They call him yourtether.”
My spine goes rigid. “What?”
“You burn the world,”MV says softly.“He keeps you here.”
The room goes so still I can hear the wind rattling the trash bags on the windows. I meet Ghost’s gaze. He’s already looking at me, no flinch, no surprise. Just acceptance. And something deeper. Something that looks a hell of a lot likeresolve.
“You gonna argue?” I ask, voice dry.
“No,” he says. “Because it’s true.”
My throat tightens. Damn him.
MV’s voice returns, quieter now.“They think killing you unlocks something. But if they take him out first…”
“They cut the tether,” I finish.
Ghost steps forward. “Then they think you fall. Or turn.”
“Or open the wrong kind of door,”MV murmurs.
The line goes dead without warning. I look at the phone, but MV’s gone. No click, no goodbye. Just gone. The silence that follows is thick enough to chew.
Ghost sits beside me, arms resting on his knees. “Still poetic?”
“No,” I murmur, staring at the wall. “Now it’s just biblical.”
The phone is still warm in my hand when I set it down.
For a minute, I don’t move. I just breathe and listen to the rattle of wind against plastic-covered windows, to the river whispering beyond the broken house walls, to the space between my heartbeats where fear doesn’t quite fit but love… somehow does.
Ghost hasn’t moved either.
We sit there in the cracked silence of the shotgun house, the kind of stillness that feels less like peace and more like the eye of something monstrous. But he’s beside me, alive, close, and that’s the only thing tethering me to gravity right now.
“They really think you’ll break me,” I say, voice low.
Ghost turns his head, eyes catching mine in the dim light. “Not break. Burn. They think I keep you human.”
“Do you?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he reaches out, slow and careful, like he’s afraid I’ll flinch. His fingers brush my side, just above the burn, ghosting over the bandage there. His touch is gentle, reverent, but it still makes something ache in my chest.
“They don’t know you,” he says. “You’re already human. Bleeding. Bruised. Carrying more weight than you let anyone see.”
“Except you.”
“Yeah,” he whispers. “Except me.”
I close my eyes. Just for a second. Just long enough to let his voice settle over the raw places in me that no armor ever quite covers.
“I keep thinking about that moment,” he murmurs. “In the tunnel, when Vale blew up the warehouse. When I thought I might not make it. And I saw you fighting like hell, bleeding, refusing to leave.”
“I wasn’t going to lose you.”
“I know. That’s the thing.” He shifts closer, his hand resting over mine now, fingers laced warm, calloused, grounding. “I’d burn the whole goddamn world to keep you safe,” Ghost says.
