Rick pulled to the curb in front of the entrance. “Don’t leave the city,” he said, sharper than he meant to. “We’ll be in touch.”
Ash smiled, the scent of crushed cloves and summer heat radiating from his skin. “I’m counting on it,” he said acidly, stepping out.
Rick started to speak—maybe to stop him, maybe to apologize, maybe just to scream—but Ash slammed the door hard enough to rattle his bones. Through the glass, Rick saw him flip the bird before disappearing into the club.
Rick sat there, engine idling, fists clenched on the wheel. He hated this. Hated the confusion, the pull, the fucking ache. Ash was trouble. A hurricane. A trick. A goddamn riddle wrapped in sin. And he was already under his skin.
He didn’t drive off. Just circled the street and parked across from the Eclipse, killing the engine. The Eldorado melted into the row of waiting cars, the windshield framing the club likea stage: blacked-out windows, an opulent canopy, a door that swallowed Ash whole the moment he slipped inside.
Rick lit a cigarette and cracked the window, letting the wind pull some of the smoke out. It snaked through the cabin, tangling with the ghosts of leather and motor oil. He tapped ash into the tray and kept his eyes on the club. His stomach growled, reminding him he had not eaten since last night, but he ignored it.
Fifteen minutes passed. Then half an hour. Still no sign of Ash.
The second cigarette burned faster than the first. Rick let it dangle from his fingers while fumes choked the streets with haze, tinting everything the color of old bruises. Calgrave looked different in daylight—less haunted, more cruel. The buildings didn’t vanish into shadow; they loomed, exposed and cracked, all their sins out in the open.
He didn’t kid himself—he knew he should’ve left. Should’ve driven back to Spire and buried himself in case files or paperwork. Hell, even a traffic stop sounded good right about now. But he sat there, dragging on one cigarette after another, hungry and frustrated, watching the entrance like it owed him a confession.
You’re losing it, Slade. Tailin’ a suspect you just cut loose. Playin’ his goddamn chauffeur. Chain-smoking before breakfast like some moon-eyed sap outta a two-bit pulp rag.
At last, the door swung open.
Ash stepped out with that same goddamn strut, the one that surely made him a star onstage. Tess Turner, the tough-as-nails bartender, followed him. Rick leaned forward, focusing. Their voices carried faintly on the wind, fragments caught by his sharpened hearing.
“—glad you’re okay,” Tess was saying, hands on her hips.
“Thanks for checking on Poe while I was gone,” Ash said, softer than Rick had ever heard him.
“’Course. He’s the only decent thing in your life.”
Ash chuckled, quiet and genuine. “Yeah, well. He’s better company than—” The passing truck cut his words off.
Tess gave him a quick hug, fierce and brief, then pulled back. “Take as much time off as you need, all right? I’ll deal with Vinny.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow night,” he said. “You just keep him away from sharp objects until then.”
She disappeared back into the club, and Ash turned the corner without a glance.
Rick dropped the cigarette into the tray and started the engine again.Poe?His jaw tightened.Boyfriend? Roommate?The name sat in his gut like a stone. He turned the car around, keeping a distance, tires hissing over wet asphalt. He spotted Ash at the mouth of an alley, swinging one long leg over a black-and-chrome motorcycle. An old Harley-Davidson Sportster—sleek, loud, pure sex on two wheels. Fitting.
Ash gloved up, slid his shades on. No helmet. Then, with a low growl, the bike came to life and peeled off into the street.
Rick followed. Not too close; just enough to keep him in sight. They weaved along Duskhaven’s seams, where the buildings leaned in like eavesdroppers and the puddles from last night’s rain shone like shards of a broken mirror. Rick stayed two cars behind, slowing at corners, letting trucks and taxis mask his presence.
At the third intersection, the bike jerked right, hard and sudden. Rick swore under his breath and slammed on the gas, only to find himself in a tangle of alleys, half of them barely wide enough for the Eldorado to squeeze through. Ornamental fences. Overturned trash cans. Steam rising from cracked manhole covers.
Ash’s taillight blinked once at the end of the block and vanished.
Rick gunned the engine. He turned left. Then right. Nothing. Just the squeal of tires on slick concrete and a startled flock of pigeons tearing into the iron sky. The bastard had given him the slip.
But Rick had his address, knew it by heart from Ash’s file. It took ten minutes to reach Silver Cove and Ash’s building—a once-stately pre-war firehouse, weathered yet unmistakably proud. Decades of neglect had dulled its shine, but its history clung to every surface: a red-brick and white-stone façade filmed in soot and grime, arched windows crowned with carved cornices like relics of former glory. Above the front stoop, the gilded firehouse crest remained, its faded lettering whispering names long retired:Engine Company 19. 1881.
The ground level had been surrendered to a shabby 24/7 laundromat, its buzzing neon sign the only hint of life. The first floor above lay in darkness, its tall panes blank, one cracked in a spiderweb pattern. The top story, by contrast, hid behind heavy curtains drawn tight, save for a lone opening left bare.
It looked decrepit, forgotten, the place fit for urban legends, not for the strange, beautiful boy who called it home. But maybe that was the point. Maybe Ash didn’t live theredespitewhat it was, butbecauseof it. A place no one sane would choose was the perfect place not to be found. His bike was tucked just around the corner, nestled in the slim passage between the firehouse and the building beside it, half-swallowed by shadow.
Rick pulled up across the street and lit another smoke. The air was quieter here, almost peaceful, the sound of traffic only a murmur in the distance. A breeze hissed past the broken teeth of the block, stirring dead leaves and newspaper scraps in loose, whispering eddies along the gutter. Crows fluttered and croaked in the trees lining the curb, their calls cutting throughthe hush whenever a lone pedestrian wandered past. Overhead, the clouds pressed low and thick above the roofs, draining color from the morning, making the world feel dim and tarnished.
What the hell are you doing here?
