Chapter 15
Ghost
I can’t stop throwing up. It’s like my body’s trying to purge the guilt, the grief, the poison of what I just did — but it’s not working. Nothing helps. I’m trapped in this loop of horror and disbelief, my head spinning, stomach clenching over and over.
I hear Bones saying something. I know it’s him. But it’s like I’m underwater, miles beneath the surface, and every sound is muffled. Warped. Distant. People are moving. Voices. Shadows. I can’t focus on any of them.
What the fuck have I done?
My body convulses again. My chest won’t expand. I’m gasping, but it’s not air that fills my lungs — it’s panic. Like I’m drowning with no end in sight.
A hand touches my shoulder.
Everything freezes. Time splinters. A second as long as an eternity passes through me.
That hand is too familiar.
Bones.
He got in my way. He did this.
If he hadn’t stopped me — if he’d just let me go through with it — I wouldn’t feel like this. I wouldn’t be split open and bleeding inside. I wouldn’t be shattered. I’d be fine right now.
Rage detonates inside my chest. White-hot. All-consuming. It hits me harder than anything I’ve ever felt in my life. It overpowers me. It’s alive, twisting my muscles, my mind.
I spin. My fist connects with his face, jerking his head sideways. My knuckles burn. It feels good.
I don’t wait. Another blow slams into his ribs. Every ounce of pain I’ve carried for years fuels it.
He should’ve stayed the fuck out of it. He should’ve let me finish it.
But Bones never stays down.
He slams a fist into my gut, knocking the wind out of me, sending me stumbling back. I welcome the pain. I need it. Maybe if he hits hard enough, I’ll stop hearing her voice in my head. Maybe it’ll kill whatever’s still left of me.
I straighten fast. I see his eyes — wary, measured. Full of fucking pity.
Don’t look at me like that, asshole.
You shouldn’t have stopped me back then.
You should’ve let me burn.
The rage grows to impossible heights, like a bomb going off inside my chest.
I roar. It’s not even human. It’s the guttural sound of a wounded animal.
I lunge, ready for the pain.
We crash to the ground, fists flying, hands clawing, rage unleashed. We’re not just fighting, we’re breaking each other. Maybe that’s what I need, because if he tears me apart from the outside, maybe it’ll match the ruin on the inside.
He grapples me, manages to flip us, and clamps an arm around my neck. I yank his cut like I want to rip his spine out through his back. He stumbles, and I shove behind him, but he anticipates it. His elbow cracks under my jaw, snapping my head back.
We’re up again. Both of us wrecked, breathing ragged, bleeding and circling each other like feral dogs.
My tongue rolls over the metallic sting of copper, tasting the blood dripping from my nose. His lip is split, red flowing down his chin. We’re a mess of forming bruises, swelling knuckles and burning lungs. We keep circling each other like caged wolves, calculating, too far gone to stop now.
I’m still not done.
I need more.
I need to destroy or be destroyed.
Just as I’m about to lunge again — rage in my blood, fists ready to break— icy water slams into me, cold and brutal. It punches the breath from my lungs, locks my limbs, freezes the fire raging under my skin. I go still, paralyzed mid-strike, like death just touched me with its fucking hands.
“What the fuck?” I gasp.
I look over and see Mindfuck, holding an empty bucket, his eyes murderous.
This fucker.
I’m drenched. Fucking drenched.
“Stop being a fucking idiot,” he growls.
I turn toward him, rage re-igniting, when he points at me and starts yelling, his voice full of shock.
“Stop, Ghost. Just fucking stop. What’s wrong with you? Look at yourself. Look at what you’re doing!”
“Ghost,” Bones says. It’s a whisper, but it cuts straight through me.
I turn to him, still panting like an animal, chest heaving, fists clenched, teeth bared. He wipes blood from his mouth, his eyes sharp.
“Talk to me.”
There’s no anger in his voice, but there’s something worse — concern.
“I need to know what happened this past year. I need to know how to help you. What you need.”
He searches my face for something, the icy blue of his eyes swirling like a storm. Then he says the only two words that break through the madness in my skull.
“Please, brother.”
The way he says it.
Brother.
He’s not pleading to his club brother. He’s pleading to the kid he grew up with. The one he chose as his own blood all those fucking years ago.
I feel that word digging its way through my flesh, burrowing inside my soul. And it knocks me straight to my knees.
I drop hard, no strength left, just the grief spreading through me. I dig my fingers into my hair and pull, needing the pain, needing anything to anchor me.
I destroyed everything, and I don’t know if there’s anything left to save. Not of her. Not of me.
Bones crouches in front of me but he says nothing. Just waits me out. He looks at me like I’m rabid, foaming at the mouth, too far gone to reason with, but maybe — just maybe — he could find an opening to get to me.
I want to scream. Rip my throat open and pour everything out. But what would that fix? I could howl at the world and it wouldn’t change a thing.
“I fucked up,” I whisper. I don’t know to which one of my fuck-ups I’m specifically referring to, but I know there are enough of them.
Should’ve stopped myself. Should’ve kept my fucking mouth shut. So what if she said his name? So what if she was the one who set the match to the pyre that burned my life down? What the fuck does it matter anymore?
I love her.
I fucking love her so much it feels like there’s a rusted knife wedged between my ribs, slicing deeper every time I breathe. And I threw her away. I nearly ended her. I could’ve put a bullet right through her skull, watched the light drain from her eyes and told myself it was justice.
But what would I have gained from that?
Would it have given me my five years back? Healed the monster inside me? Silenced the screams in my head?
No.
It would’ve just buried me beside her.
The worst part? I’ve had these thoughts before. They stopped me from finishing it when I was supposed to. After the five months. After the six. Seven. Eight. Nine. I kept pushing the end back, because my soul wouldn’t let me let go.
But the darkness always came crawling back. Always whispered in my ear, Do it. Finish it.
And this time I listened.
Now panic races through my bloodstream like poison.
My head snaps up. “Who went after her?” My voice sounds foreign. “I need to talk to her. I need to—”
We both glance around.
The brothers are watching us, quiet. Weary. Like they’re waiting for round two. Like they don’t know if this shitshow’s over or just catching its breath.
“Domino,” Bones growls, “what the fuck are you still doing here? Where is she? I signaled you to go after her.”
My eyes find Domino. He flinches, realizing he fucked up.
“She refused,” he says with a weak shrug. “Didn’t want help. And then… you two started brawling. I mean, fuck! It’s Adora. You really wanted me to follow her? I thought we hated her!”
I blink through the static.
Then I drag both hands down my face and scream through my fingers. “FUCK!”
“Go after her,” I bark, already turning, already moving.
I bolt to my room.
The second I cross the threshold, my legs refuse to move.
Not long ago, she was here, sleeping in my bed. Curled against me like she belonged nowhere else.
I force myself to breathe. Once. Twice. My hands are shaking.
She’s out there. Barely dressed. Alone. After everything I did — after the fucking crucifixion I just dragged her through — I know what kind of place her mind must be in.
I know the damage I inflicted. I saw it in her eyes. I don’t have much time.
I grab my phone off the nightstand and open the tracker app.
The location loads.
My heart crashes through the floor.
Hospital.
She’s at the fucking hospital.
“Fuck,” I whisper. And then louder, harder, “FUCK!”
I don’t stop to think. I run.