Page 32 of Vows & Violence
I find Poison and Kitty in the safehouse kitchen, already half into her second cup of coffee. She clocks me without turning around. “You look like hell.”
“You should see the other guy,” I murmur. Poison doesn’t laugh, and neither do I.
“I need to show you something.” I slide the burner across the table. Blood smudges the side from when Ghost dropped it last night. The photo still on the screen is what we found in the warehouse. Vale’s lieutenant ripped open and posed like a cautionary tale. The words sprayed across the wall like a curse:
She rides with Death. He is already ours.
Poison reads it once, then again. Her jaw tightens, “It’s him.”
“Vale,” I state.
“No.” Poison shakes her head. “Ghost. They’re targeting him. That was a message, a warning, and a claim.”
“I know.” I sit down across from her, my fingers tapping a twitchy rhythm I can’t stop. “But I think it’s more than just threats.”
She lifts a brow. “Go on.”
I take a breath and say the words that scare me more than bullets ever could. “They’re doing something to him. Psychologically. Maybe chemically. Ghost said he’s seeing things. Hearing things. He grabbed me last night and didn’t even know it. And I don’t think it washimthat grabbed me.”
Poison stares. Not shocked. Just grim. “You think it’s Hollow Sons tech?”
“No. I think it’s legacy tech. Something fromhispast.” I hesitate, then add, “He mentioned a precinct-level op.Black budget, hush-hush mental conditioning trials on cops. Something about rewiring instinctive threat responses. He said it was shut down.”
She snorts. “They never shut that shit down. They just rebrand it.”
I nod. “And now someone’s restarted it. Or repurposed it. And they’re using Ghost’s history as a blueprint.”
We sit in silence for a moment, the weight of it sinking between us. Then Poison leans back and mutters, “MV’s gonna love this.”
MV’s got the screen split. One feed on the alley security cam where Ghost swore he saw Vale, the other on a redacted file MV unearthed under a shell company tied to a federal pilot program from eight years ago:Project Hollow Response.
It wasn’t just mental conditioning. It was a behavioral override. They used drugs, triggers, and repetitive stimuli embedded in video and audio files. Used on trauma survivors to rewire the fight-or-flight response.
“Check the source company,” I say, pacing.
MV zooms in while Viper whistles low. “Red River Medical. That’s government, not street-level cartel stuff.”
“Exactly,” I say. “The Hollow Sons didn’t invent this. They inherited it. Or stole it.”
Gypsy adds, “That warehouse wasn’t just a murder scene. It was a test site. They were watching how Ghost reacted.”
“And the writing?” Kitty asks from the corner.
Poison answers for me. “Scripted. A trigger.”
MV talks through the speakers. Their voice is still mechanical, even though we all assume they’re female.“Or a lure. They wanted him there. Wanted you there to see how far they could push.”
I clench my jaw. My hands itch for my gun, but this isn’t a target I can shoot. This is a war of shadows and whispers, and Ghost is caught dead center.
“He’s being pulled apart from the inside,” I say quietly. “And we don’t know how deep they’ve gone.”
Viper glances over. “You think he’s compromised?”
“I think he’s haunted,” I reply. “But I’m not giving up on him.”
Silence. No one pushes back.
Gypsy speaks, careful and slow. “Phoenix, what if there’s a command phrase we don’t know? What if next time he’s holding a blade and doesn’t come back?”
