Chapter Eighteen
Ashen
I sat on the porch steps of a house I didn’t know, in a town I didn’t recognize, and felt nothing.
The sun was a warm weight on my shoulders.
A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the giant maple tree in the front yard, making shadows dance on the overgrown lawn.
From inside, I could hear the faint clink of dishes and the low murmur of voices—Leslie’s, I thought.
She smelled like cinnamon and fresh bread.
It should have been comforting. It was just .
. . noise. Data my brain processed but my soul refused to accept.
I was a ghost, haunting the edges of someone else’s life.
A yearning, sharp and sudden, cut through the static in my head.
The sedatives. I craved the merciful fog, the chemical blanket that had once smothered the world into a manageable, muted gray.
Clarity was a knife’s edge, and I was bleeding out on it.
I’d fought so hard for this—to feel, to be present. Now all I wanted was to be gone.
The screen door opened, and a blur of golden fur and unadulterated joy came bounding out. Stanley. The dog skidded to a stop in front of me, tail thumping a frantic rhythm against the wooden steps. A wet nose nudged my limp hand.
I flinched. I shoved the dog, a short, sharp push. It wasn’t a gesture of malice. It was a reflex, a desperate need to keep the world and its relentless, vibrant life out.
Stanley stumbled back, then let out a soft, confused whimper.
The sound sliced through the fog. It was the same sound a hundred other dogs made, but it echoed in my memory as something specific. Sparkles. The promise I’d made to an old, sad-eyed dog in a cage. I’ll come back for you. I swear.
The thought of having to care about that promise, about one more thing in a world of broken things, was a wave of nausea. I couldn’t. I was dead to the pain, dead to the promise. Dead to the man who’d been foolish enough to make it.
The screen door creaked. Heavy, solid footsteps crossed the porch. A moment later, Gene was sitting on the step beside me. He held two steaming mugs and placed one on the wood next to my knee. We sat in silence, watching the shadows lengthen across the grass.
“There’s nothing anyone can say that’s right,” Gene said finally, his voice a low rumble. “Or enough. This whole damn situation sucks. There’s no other word for it.”
Stanley, ever hopeful, nudged my leg again.
“Get away from me,” I rasped, shoving the dog more forcefully this time.
“Don’t do that,” Gene said, his voice still calm, but with an edge of steel. “Don’t let what they did, what she did, turn you into someone you were never meant to be.”
A bitter, broken sound that might have been a laugh escaped my throat. “A little late for that, don’t you think?”
Gene took a slow sip of his coffee, unfazed.
“Son, I know you’re hurting. But the thing about pain .
. . it’s like a fire. It burns hot and it feels like it’s going to consume everything you are.
But unless you keep feeding it wood, it eventually loses its power.
It burns down to embers. Doesn’t mean it’s gone, but it stops being the only thing you can feel. ”
He looked out at the yard, at the fading light. “You have a place to stay here, for as long as you need. Mark and the others . . . they’ll make sure you’re safe. We’ll all make sure you’re safe.”
I stared at my own hands, resting uselessly on my knees. They looked like a stranger’s. “I don’t care what happens to me.” The words were flat. Devoid of everything. The truest thing I had ever said.
Gene nodded, as if he’d expected it. “I know. And that’s okay for now.
But it doesn’t change a thing for us.” He turned, his gaze steady and unwavering.
“You can be angry, you can hate the world, you can say whatever you want. That doesn’t change that we care, and it doesn’t change that we’re going to keep our promise to protect you. ”
I heard the words. A distant part of me registered them.
A place to stay. Safety. It was all absurd.
I had no money. The expensive new clothes on my back had been bought for me by Thane a few hours ago.
The car I’d driven here belonged to a family that was not mine.
I had no home. I didn’t even have a name.
I was no longer a Gravestone. I wasn’t even Enimton—that was just a label, a cruel one at that.
And Ashen? That was the name she had given me.
I’d let the others call me that, but it was a brand from a different kind of fire, and a raw ache pulsed in my chest whenever I heard it.
I wanted to care. I wanted to feel the weight of Gene’s promise and believe it.
But when I reached inside myself for something to hold on to, there was nothing there. Just a hollow, echoing space where a life used to be.
I had nothing left.