Chapter Fourteen. Julian
FOURTEEN
JULIAN
“Aye, relax, man,” Carlos murmured. “Pinstripes aren’t about strength. It’s all patience and purpose. Breathe with it.”
Normally, Julian loved this—loved the quiet focus of laying down a clean line, the satisfaction of a perfect curve blooming across chrome. Carlos always said Julian had “an artist’s eye,” which made something warm and fizzy settle in Julian’s chest every time.
But today? He hadn’t slept since the whisper in his closet. The susto chill sat in his bones like ice, turning every bolt into a small war. He needed to tell Yadriel before the shadows got worse. And with the Midnight Vigil tonight, he’d see him soon—if he could just get through the day.
The night before had been too much. He could still hear it.
Julian, whispered like a curse, a warning, or both. If anyone would believe him, it was Yads.
The thought of his boyfriend—his steady, grounded Yadriel—eased the worst of the nervousness coiling in his chest. He’d feel better once he saw him. He always did.
But there was more than just comfort pulling Julian toward Yadriel.
They needed to do something before the shadows got any bolder. Well, bolder than they already were.
Plus Angel still hadn’t texted. No calls. No voice messages. Not even a ghost emoji.
The only reason he hadn’t gone to Yadriel’s first thing was that he had to work, and he hadn’t texted him because how would he even explain that through messages?
Julian’s wrist twitched as he tried to follow Carlos’s instructions and the line smeared into a shaky zigzag.
He hissed under his breath. “Dude, come on—focus.”
Julian lifted his hand to try again, but even that made the world tilt a little. His arms felt heavy, fog curling somewhere between his ribs and spine. The brush dipped the wrong way and a fat bead of paint dripped onto the fender.
Carlos clicked his tongue gently. Not mad—never mad, just concerned. “Hey. Hey. It’s fine.” He took the brush from Julian’s hand before it could fall. “Look at your hands, man. You’re shakin’ like you had three Red Bulls for breakfast.”
“I’m good,” Julian lied automatically. His legs trembled with exhaustion, that cold susto-pulse buried deep in his bones. “I can keep going—”
“Nah, you ain’t.” Carlos tipped his chin toward Julian. “Be real with me, Jules. You look like you’re about to face-plant into my clear coat, and I just buffed that shit.”
Julian tried to laugh but it came out weak, his breath catching on the way in. He rubbed the heel of his palm over his eyes, trying to steady himself. The air hummed. Even the shop lights felt too bright.
“I’m fine,” he muttered again, though the wobble in his voice betrayed him.
Carlos set the striping brush aside. “Wrap it up, Jules. You’re done for today.”
Julian’s shoulders sagged. “Fine,” he sighed, wiping a smear of grease across his forehead with the back of his hand. He set down the tools with shaky hands.
Carlos looked Julian up and down and let out a whistle.
“You’re too skinny, bro,” he said, pinching Julian’s upper arm. “You eating?”
“Yeah,” Julian said automatically. Then, after a beat. “Well, not today,” he corrected himself. He’d thought about a bowl of cereal, but he felt too queasy to eat without repercussions.
Carlos grunted and jerked his chin toward the office. “I got some food in there,” Carlos said. “You wanna plate?”
“Nah, my stomach’s messed up, man,” Julian replied, pressing a hand to his gut.
Carlos narrowed his eyes like he didn’t believe that for a second, but he didn’t push. “Go upstairs and take it easy,” he said, pulling out his phone. It looked comically small in his large hand.
Julian managed a shaky smile. “Got it.”
He barely made it through the door before collapsing face-first onto the couch. The cushions weren’t comfortable so much as available. The springs let out a tired groan. He didn’t even bother kicking off his shoes—just shrugged out of his hoodie and let himself sink.
His whole body was one big ache. His fingers still tingled from the wrench. The cold hadn’t left his bones even in the warmth of the apartment.
He wanted to head over to Yadriel’s, but the sheer exhaustion kept him melting into the couch.
His stomach twisted again. He pulled a throw pillow over his head like it could shut out the memories.
Julian exhaled slowly through his nose. He closed his eyes—just for a minute.
The couch dissolved.
He was standing in the cemetery again—but it wasn’t right. The sky above him pulsed with a deep, unnatural blue, like he was looking up through the surface of water. The ground breathed beneath his feet, like something was shifting just under the soil.
Tombstones stretched out into the dark, hundreds of them—too many, crowding each other, names he didn’t recognize and some he did.
Julian.
The voice slithered around him, closer this time. Not a whisper— a presence, brushing the edge of his mind like a finger dragging through wet paint.
He turned in circles, trying to find it.
Then the closet door appeared—just standing there in the middle of the graveyard. Slightly ajar, glowing blue light spilling out through the cracks. The same wrong blue as the sink. As his closet. Like every door was the same door.
He took a step toward it, and the ground gave way. He plunged downward, weightless and breathless, the whisper curling tighter around him like smoke.
Julian.
He couldn’t scream.
Couldn’t run.
Couldn’t breathe.
SLAM.
Julian jerked upright with a sharp gasp, the image of the closet door still burned behind his eyes, only to find Rio in the doorway.
“Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me!” Julian barked, adrenaline bolting through his veins.
Rio dropped a small paper bag onto the table with a thud. A few bottles of generic Pedialyte rolled out alongside a handful of grocery- store-brand medicine.
“What’s all that?” Julian asked groggily.
Rio tossed him one of the square bottles. “Drink it.”
Julian wrinkled his nose. “This is for babies.”
“Drink it,” Rio repeated, not in the mood for jokes. He dumped a few pills into Julian’s hand.
“Why?” Julian asked, even as he obeyed. He downed the pills and took a swig—and immediately gagged. “Ugh. Salty Gatorade.” At least it was purple.
“Good,” Rio grunted, moving to the kitchen as Julian glared at his retreating back.
Julian rubbed his eyes, pulse still spiking from the dream. But the Pedialyte didn’t make him feel better. If anything, it made him more aware of how bad he felt—dizzy, nauseous, as if the floor could shift out from under him any second.
He couldn’t sit there.
“I’m gonna go to Yadriel’s place,” Julian announced, pushing himself off the couch, blood rushing to his head.
“I don’t want you going out,” Rio said immediately.
“What? Why?!” Julian balked, his voice pitching higher. “It’s still light out!”
“Because you’re sick,” Rio said, rounding on him with that all-too-familiar I’m in charge stance—arms crossed, jaw set. “Carlos told me you looked ready to pass out. You need to rest.”
“I’m fine,” Julian insisted. “I was working all morning, wasn’t I? If I can do that, I can go see Yads.”
Rio didn’t budge. “Jules.”
“Look, I’ll use my phone’s GPS, okay?” Julian blurted, pulling out his phone and waving it like proof of life. “You can track me the whole way there—I won’t go anywhere else, I swear!”
Rio looked at the phone. Then at Julian. Something shifted behind his eyes—not anger. Not annoyance.
Worry.
Rio opened his mouth to argue again but paused. His jaw shifted, and then he let out a long breath, shoulders sagging just slightly.
“You really want to see Yadriel that bad, huh?” he asked, voice lower now.
Julian swallowed. “Yeah.”
“You’ll see him tonight anyway,” Rio said. “The Midnight Vigil. His Lita texted me about it.”
Julian blinked. Of course she did.
He nodded.
Something in Rio’s face unspooled. “Fine. Wear a jacket. And answer your phone.”
Julian didn’t even argue. He grabbed the thickest coat he could find, shoving his arms through the sleeves like his life depended on it before snagging his skateboard. The second the zipper hit his chin, he was already at the door.
Behind him, Rio stood in the kitchen, unmoving. Watching him go.
There was something else he wanted to say. Julian could feel it.
But the words never came.
Julian hopped off his skateboard before reaching the cemetery.
His stomach churned, and the wind cut sharper than before—or maybe that was just in his head.
He rode his skateboard up to the back gate, too anxious for the long way around.
The rusted chains gave just enough for him to slip through and book it for Yadriel’s house.
He cut a wide berth around the old church. Just being near it made his skin crawl. Something about it felt like the closet—that wrongness, like the shadows there watched.
He was almost clear when his body seized.
That chill again. Deep and instant, like someone had dunked him in ice water.
Julian spun around. “Not now,” he groaned.
He scanned the rows of headstones—and then he saw him.
Catriz.
No mist. No blurry half form. This time, he was there—fully visible, framed against the crooked silhouette of the church. Those watery lights danced across his skin, shadows pooling and billowing at his feet.
More solid than ever before, his features came into sharp focus—the stern line of his jaw, the deep furrows of his brow, and the sharp hook of his nose. Those strange, watery lights continued to dance across him from an unseen source. This was no fleeting apparition.
This time, Catriz looked like he could reach out and slap Julian upside the head if he wanted to.
Julian’s breath caught.
It was him.
The figure in the closet.
The voice in his dreams.
The one who’d killed him.
“Julian,” Catriz said, voice warped and echoing like it was dragging itself through a tunnel.
Julian’s fists clenched. His whole body bristled, every nerve screaming at him to run—but he didn’t.
“Come to finish the job?” he barked. “Because this time I’m not going down without a fight.”
He had no weapon. No portaje. Not even a plan. But he had anger. And fear. And Yadriel’s name clenched behind his teeth like a protective spell.
Catriz’s mouth twisted—not in amusement, but in frustration. “I’m—” he began.
Julian didn’t let him.
“Okay, Tío Espooky, what’s your deal?!” he demanded. “Don’t you gotta clock back in for your shift at the haunted house or something?” Julian kept his voice sharp, flippant—but his pulse was spiking. His skin felt too tight.
Catriz’s outline stuttered like something had a hook in him. “I’ve been trying—”
“To give me a heart attack?” Julian snapped. “Congrats. Ten out of ten.”
But his bravado was slipping. The closer Catriz came into focus, the more real he felt. This was the man who’d killed him. And now … he was trying to talk?
“Listen to me, boy!” Catriz’s voice cracked—not with fury, but strain. Like he was fighting the pull of something stronger. “I don’t have much time—”
Julian faltered.
There was something in Catriz’s voice. Not power. Not cold. Just … panic.
It caught him off guard.
He squinted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “You’re struggling to stay here?” he asked, quieter now.
He didn’t know ghosts could be dragged. And if something could pull Catriz away like that, it had to be powerful. Too powerful.
That meant something—or someone—had control over him.
Catriz’s form glitched again—his shape jolting like static, shoulders twitching as if something had grabbed hold of him.
“?Sí, idiota!” Catriz growled. “It takes everything I have just to—”
“Then stop wasting it!” Julian snapped back. “Spit it out!”
He hated how his voice cracked. Hated that he sounded scared.
Catriz stepped forward. His eyes were glowing now, brighter than before—not dangerous but desperate. There was something almost human in the way his face twisted.
“I need to warn you—”
Julian’s stomach flipped.
“About what?”
Catriz’s head turned sharply—looking past Julian, over his shoulder.
His eyes widened. “He’s coming.”
The words landed like a punch to the chest.
Julian’s breath froze.
“Who?” he asked, but the words felt thin, powerless. His throat had gone dry.
Catriz didn’t answer.
The shadows around him surged, swallowing him whole. Not vanishing—recalled. Like someone yanked the reel and he got ripped backward off the film.
He exploded into smoke, sucked backward into the night like someone had hit Rewind on a horror movie. The last whisper of his voice shuddered through the cemetery like a tremor.
Julian stood there, stone-still.
The silence was loud. Dense. And it felt aware. Like whatever had dragged Catriz away wasn’t gone. It was watching him now.
“Fuck,” Julian hissed.
His mind raced. He’d spent weeks thinking he was being haunted by some evil ghost—or maybe his brain left the door open and all the weird wandered in.
But it was Catriz. The one who betrayed Yadriel. The one who murdered Julian.
And now he was trying to warn them?
Julian didn’t have time to unravel the why.
All he knew was, if Catriz was afraid … then something worse was on the way. And if something could jerk Catriz off the map mid-sentence, maybe that was what was yanking other spirits away, too.
Julian needed to find Yadriel and Maritza.
He turned and ran full tilt toward the cemetery’s heart, his board tucked under his arm. Every grave felt like it was watching him. Every shadow twitched.