Chapter 63 Every Part
EVERY PART
Monsters (Acoustic) - Ruelle
Kayla
That night I find Ghost in the stairwell having snuck out of the room for…something. Space. Air, maybe. Or just a change of scenery. I don’t know. It’s impossible to sleep with the weight of Nightshade’s gaze, his guilt, boring into me at all times. I just…needed a breather, I guess.
Ghost isn’t hiding. He never does. He’s sitting on the step between floors like the building forgot to tell him where he belongs, elbows on his knees, fingers loosely laced, gaze angled somewhere past the concrete wall.
He looks up when the door opens.
No flinch. No startle. Just a slight shift of attention, like a lens adjusting.
“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.
“I slept.” I shrug. “I just…finished early.”
His mouth tilts, barely. “That’s usually when it gets loud.”
I step inside and let the door close behind me. The air is cooler here – dust, concrete, old paint. No coffee. No food. No effort at comfort.
I sit two steps above him. The movement is smooth, balanced, instinctive. My body knows exactly where it’s going.
We’re quiet for a moment. Ghost watches the stairwell, not me. He gives me space even when proximity would be easier.
“You’re moving differently,” he says eventually.
I blink, wondering if he means because of the pregnancy and dreading the answer. “How?”
“Like you’re already accounting for what comes next.”
A faint pressure gathers behind my sternum. “That sounds ominous.”
“It’s neutral,” he replies. “Just earlier than most people manage.”
I rest my hands on my thighs. They’re steady. Annoyingly so.
“I feel better,” I say.
Ghost turns his head fully this time.
Not relieved. Not reassured. Just attentive.
“That’s the dangerous phase,” he says calmly.
I swallow. My throat feels too open. “You’re not going to tell me it’s shock.”
“No.”
“You’re not going to tell me it’ll wear off.”
“No.”
“You’re not going to tell me to breathe.”
“Definitely not.”
A short breath escapes me – half laugh, half release.
“I don’t feel watched,” I continue. “Not anymore. No pressure. No sense of pursuit. It’s like the room stopped leaning.”
“It did,” Ghost says.
I look at him sharply. “You felt it too.”
“I notice when environments change their rules.”
My pulse ticks up. Not panic. Recognition.
“I don’t think it stopped,” I say.
“I wouldn’t expect it to,” he replies. “Parasites don’t disengage once the host stabilises.”
The word doesn’t sting. It clarifies.
“You don’t avoid it,” I say.
He shrugs. “Avoidance creates blind spots.”
“You live with one,” I say. “Two, technically.”
His jaw tightens, then loosens again. “Yes.”
“Do they talk to you?”
“Yes.”
That pulls me short.
“Both of them,” he continues, like this is weather, not confession. “Different priorities. Different tolerances.”
“And right now?”
“One is curious. The other is irritated and thinks this conversation is unnecessary.”
“And you?” I ask.
“I think you needed someone who wouldn’t pretend.”
My breath slows. Not from relief. From alignment.
“They don’t fight you?” I ask.
“All the time. They negotiate,” he says. “They push when they think I’m about to lie to myself.”
“Do they think you are?”
“Yes.”
I shift closer, down the steps to join him, before I decide to. Our shoulders brush – light, brief.
Ghost stiffens for half a second, then adjusts so the contact is deliberate. Maintained.
“I don’t feel invaded,” I say quietly. “That’s what scares me.”
“That’s how it works,” he replies. “If it hurt constantly, you’d resist. If it frightened you, you’d seek removal.”
“And if it cooperates?”
“You make room. Adapt.”
My hand drifts to my stomach. Warm. Calm. Steady.
Too steady.
“Was it like that for you?”
He nods. “Yeah. It was gradual. By the time I realised what they were doing, it was too late to get rid of them.”
“But you’ve not learnt to live in harmony yet.”
“You’re bringing us closer together. That counts for something.”
“I don’t feel pressured,” I admit. “I feel…assisted.”
Ghost’s fingers curl against his knee. “That’s the stage where people start confusing harmony with consent.”
The…baby shifts – slow, settled, unbothered. My stomach tightens, not with fear but with something colder. Calculation.
“They didn’t have enough staff,” I murmur. “Not for what they were supposed to be protecting.”
“No,” Ghost agrees. “They had enough to observe.”
A faint chill spreads along my arms.
“So this wasn’t an escape,” I say.
“It was a corridor.”
The word threads through everything that came before.
“So what were they really watching?” I ask.
“Probably how you decide and react when resistance stops being useful,” Ghost says. “What you do when the pressure eases instead of escalating.”
My breathing stays even. That feels like a problem.
“And now?” I ask.
“Now they’re watching what you do when you think you’re safe.”
I let his words sink in as my head rests back against the concrete wall.
Ghost mirrors me a moment later. He’s not wrong.
And he’s not telling me anything I haven’t figured out for myself.
But still, it’s good to have my theories confirmed.
I don’t know why I feel like I can talk to him and not the others, but… he gets it.
Our shoulders stay pressed together – grounded, unremarkable, intimate in a way that doesn’t ask permission.
“I don’t want to lose myself,” I say.
“You won’t,” he replies. “Not unless you stop checking.”
“How do I tell what’s me?” I ask.
“You won’t always,” he says. “The important part is not deciding too quickly that clarity means purity.”
I turn my head. He’s closer than I realised. Close enough to feel his breath change when I shift.
“I should go back,” I say.
“Yes,” he agrees. “Before Nightshade tears the building down looking for you.”
A faint smile ghosts across my mouth.
Before I stand, I hesitate.
“Does it ever stop feeling like a negotiation?” I ask.
“No,” Ghost says. “But you learn which terms are non-negotiable and try to avoid hostage situations.”
I rise. Balanced. Controlled. Still myself. Mostly.
Before I open the door, I turn back.
“You don’t see me as broken,” I say.
“No,” he answers without pause. “I see you as inhabited.”
Something in my chest tightens, precise and contained.
I step closer instead of away.
It isn’t planned. It isn’t romantic. It’s necessity.
I lean in and press my forehead lightly to his – brief, careful. A grounding point. His breath catches, then steadies. One of his hands lifts, pauses, then settles at my wrist, fingers warm and anchoring.
No claiming. No taking.
Just confirmation.
“Remember,” he says softly, voices aligned for once, “you’re allowed to take up space in your own body.”
I cover his hand with mine for a single second. Feel the pulse there. Human. Real.
Then I step back.
“I think,” I say softly, “I see all of you. Every part. And I’m not afraid of any of them. You’re allowed to be all of you here, none of it makes me want you less.”
When I open the stairwell door, the hotel smells like detergent and coffee and false normality. Like the world pretending nothing sharp exists.
Nightshade will see the difference immediately, as will Hatchet. Bones will note it in my gait most likely. Honey will try to laugh it off but he’ll catalogue it. Snow will be oblivious and self-absorbed as always.
None of them will know exactly what Ghost knows.
And I won’t tell them.
Not yet.
Because whatever is inside me isn’t just watching how I survive pressure anymore.
It’s watching what I choose when things go quiet.
And so am I.
Of course, it’s utterly ridiculous that I have to sneak back into my own hotel room, even though I’ve done nothing wrong.
It’s probably even more ridiculous that I thought I could get away with sneaking out, without being caught.
The door clicks softly behind me.
I barely have time to register the darkness before Nightshade moves.
He’s on his feet instantly, a shadow detaching itself from the far side of the room, crossing the space between us with controlled speed that makes my pulse jump.
“Where were you.”
Not a question.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I say, keeping my voice calm. “I went for a walk.”
“You left the room,” he snaps, stopping so close I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. “You were gone when I woke up.”
The words aren’t loud. They don’t need to be. There’s something stripped bare in his tone, all the restraint he prides himself on cracked open and exposed.
“I didn’t disappear,” I say evenly. “I came back.”
“That’s not the same thing,” he says. His eyes drag over me, sharp, searching, cataloguing. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t think I needed to.”
His jaw flexes. “After everything—”
“I was safe.”
That stops him.
“Safe how?” he demands.
I hesitate for half a second. Not because I’m unsure, but because I know exactly what this will do.
“I wasn’t alone,” I say.
The air changes.
Nightshade stills so completely it’s like he’s gone carved from stone.
“Who?” he demands quietly.
“Ghost.”
The name lands heavy between us.
His gaze darkens, something possessive and ugly flashing there before he reins it in. “You went off with him.”
“We talked,” I correct. “In the stairwell.”
His hand comes up, bracing against the door beside my head, not trapping me but close enough that the intention is unmistakable. “Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Did you want him to?”
I hesitate. “No.”
“Did he kiss you?”
The question is sharp. Bare.
I meet his eyes without blinking. “No.”
Something in him loosens – just a fraction – and it infuriates me more than the jealousy itself.
“He didn’t try,” I add calmly. “He wouldn’t.”
That lands worse.
Nightshade exhales through his nose, slow and deliberate, like he’s trying to get himself back under control and failing.
“You don’t just vanish into the night with someone else,” he says, voice low and dangerous, “and expect me not to—”
I step forward.
I’m the one who closes the last inch of space between us.