And fuck me sideways, I think I’m starting to care about all three of them. For real. Actual feelings.
Somebody sedate me.
Either way, we’re doing this.
We reach the back of the hospital and turn into a wide lot that looks like a post-apocalyptic parking zone. Cracked asphalt,a couple of stubborn trees that grew without permission. And there it is: a black beast of a motorcycle.
Cassian doesn’t slow down. He sets me down gently, grabs the keys from the saddlebag, and swings onto the seat.
“Get on,” he says.
I don’t hesitate. I wrap my arms around his middle, feel the heat of him through his torn shirt, the ridges of ribs that shouldn’t be so sharp, and the slick, cooling blood beneath my hands. My legs grip the bike as he kicks the engine to life.
The roar is all metal and fury.
Somewhere behind us, I hear Talon, Nathaniel, and the boy getting into the car. But it's just background noise now.
Cassian doesn’t wait for confirmation, or a plan, or sanity.
The bike surges forward like a missile. I’m slammed against his back, clinging tighter as the wind howls around us. He leans low, head down, hands locked on the handlebars.
Asphalt flies beneath us in a blur of grey, streetlights streaking past like smudged fire.
We tear through the city’s outskirts, flying down back roads I don’t recognize. Cassian clearly knows where he’s going, but everything is unfamiliar to me. I never had a reason to travel as a full-time Grim Reaper, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have cared where the pull took me.
Places were just that—places. For five years, every one of them held another death, no different than the last.
Only now do I really see the living world.
We’re heading into the poorer part of town, not the kind packed with greasy pubs and shady alleyways, but a quieter kind of poor.
The houses are worn but lived in. Fences hang by a single hinge. Yards spill over with dry weeds, rusted toys, and broken porch chairs. One lawn even has an old mattress, half-frozenfrom last night’s rain, slumped against a chain-link fence like no one cared enough to move it.
Most windows are dark. The few that are lit give off only a weak glow.
We take a sharp turn onto a narrower road. Gravel crunches beneath the tires, the bike dipping and growling across uneven ground. Up ahead, a house appears out of the shadow. Small. Faded paint peeling along the sides. The numbers above the door hang crooked, as if gravity and time dragged them sideways and no one ever fixed it.
It’s nestled between other houses, even with a few in front, but as soon as we pull up, I know this is the one.
I feel it in my bones, in the way I hold on to Cassian. His soul is tied to this place.
He doesn’t shut off the engine until we’re directly in front of it.
He swings off the bike, boots crunching on broken pavement. I follow, legs shaky, heart racing, breath still ragged from the ride. But there’s no time to catch up, he’s already moving toward the door.
Something twists deep in my gut.
The house is too quiet.
The wraith is here.
“Cassian—” I start, but he’s already at the door, hand on the knob. No knock.
“Ma?” he calls out.
I move in behind him, begging my legs not to give out. They’re close to trembling, and I hate it. My stomach is tight. My hands feel both numb and painfully tense.
The air inside smells like old paper, dead plants, and something darker. Like a wraith lurking in the seams of the human world.
