Page 6 of Vows & Violence
I pull out my phone to check for a reply from MV. Nothing. I try a second channel. Still nothing. The emptiness of the screen feels like a warning in itself.
Viper leans over, glancing at my screen, her face unreadable. “She’s either hiding or gone,” she mutters. “And if she’s gone…” Her voice trails off. I don’t need to ask. We’re on our own.
Ghost’s voice cuts through the quiet. “Vale used her to bait us, or worse. Whatever the hell this is, it’s out now.”
I nod, turning my phone off and pocketing it. I can feel it too. Something’s come loose. And it’s not just in the city. It’s in all of us.
Viper doesn’t waste time. She’s already working, pulling up her laptop and scribbling on a map of the city. It’s covered in pins, each one marking something important. As she zooms in, I catch sight of the symbols. Those spirals we’ve been seeing. Some are etched into stone; others are burned into trees. It’s like they’ve been here for centuries, waiting.
“This one popped up overnight,” she mutters, tapping the screen. “Treme. Near the cemetery. Another spiral.”
I look closer, and my pulse quickens. The spirals are forming a ring, a pentagon if you trace the lines between them. It’s not random. Whoever is doing this is building something. Or maybe… someone.
Viper taps a finger on the map. “They’re forming a containment ring. Someone was trying to keep something in.”
“And Vale broke it,” I finish for her, a cold certainty creeping up my spine. The pieces of this puzzle are slipping through my fingers, and I can’t hold them all.
I can feel Ghost behind me, his eyes on the map, but his mind elsewhere. He speaks up after a beat. “We need more bodies. If this thing’s as bad as it sounds, we can’t handle it alone.”
I turn to face him, shaking my head. “They’re not ready for this. They’ll be dead before they even understand what they’re fighting.”
Viper’s voice is low but steady. “She’s right, Ghost. We bring in the MC now, and they’ll get swept up in it. This isn’t something we can explain in one sentence.”
“But we can’t just keep running,” he insists, his jaw tight. “We can’t be the only ones fighting.”
He’s right, and I hate that he’s right. But we’re stuck. There’s no easy answer, not when the walls are closing in. I’m already starting to feel like we’re being hunted, like we’re not just fighting for our lives but for the world we know to stay the same.
In the silence that follows, I find myself staring at the map, trying to make sense of the mess of lines and symbols. It’s a puzzle, and I’m running out of time to solve it. I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up.
Ghost steps closer, and I feel him before he speaks. “Are you afraid?”
It’s a strange question. One I hadn’t expected. And one that shakes something deep inside me. I look at him, and there’s nothing but honesty in his eyes, a rawness that’s too familiar. “Yeah,” I admit, my voice barely above a whisper. “I’m afraid. I don’t know how to fight something that wears our dead like skin.”
He moves closer, and there’s a moment where everything else disappears. And then his lips are on mine, soft but steady, grounding. The kiss isn’t passionate, but it’s enough to remind me we’re still here, still human. Still us. He pulls away slowly, his breath warm against my skin.
“Whatever it is,” he says softly, “we’ll deal with it. Together.”
I nod, feeling something settle in my chest. Maybe it’s the beginning of understanding. Maybe it’s something else. Whatever it is, it feels like a lifeline in a sea of uncertainty.
Viper calls us to the front of the house just as I’m grabbing my gear. Her voice is sharp, but there’s a crack in it, something I’ve never heard before.
“Phoenix. Ghost. You need to see this.”
We make our way to the front door, and my heart skips when I see the mark carved into the wood. Another spiral. Fresh. Deep. It’s like it was made only minutes ago, while we were inside. I run my fingers over it, feeling the chill in the air that follows. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
Viper’s voice is grim. “We’re not tracking it anymore. It’s circling us.”
I look at Ghost, and he looks back at me, his jaw tightening. “What now?”
I swallow hard. I don’t have an answer, but I know one thing for sure. "Whatever it is," I whisper, running my thumb over the mark, "it's not waiting anymore. It’s hunting."
Chapter Four
Ghost
Phoenix sleeps tangled in the sheet beside me, her bare back rising and falling in slow, steady breaths. A single beam of morning light cuts across her shoulder, catching the edge of the tattoo curling over her spine. The Phoenix. The namesake. The fire. Mine.
I should let her sleep. God knows she barely does. But I can’t stop staring. There’s peace in her face that I rarely see. No blood on her knuckles. No steel behind her eyes. Just skin and lashes and the softest frown, like even in sleep, she’s on alert.
