Chapter 19 Ghost
The morning starts like all the others. A too-cold shower.
My hair pulled back into a ponytail. My uniform clinging to skin still tender from training.
I check to ensure my door is locked like always, turning off the alarms on my phone.
My boots echo down the dorm hall as I head toward the main building.
At first, I don’t notice anything different. The whispers? Normal. The stares? Expected. This school thrives on spectacle, and I’ve been the main event since I arrived.
But then— I see the first one. Taped to the hallway bulletin board, between club flyers and weekend notices.
A black-and-white photo.
My face. Swollen eye. Split lip. Bruising. My face sunken in like a Tim Burton character.
I turn and see more black-and-white photos slapped on the walls.
One showing faint fingerprint bruises blooming across my collarbone.
Another picture’s bruising around my wrists Another of my back with every bleeding belt gash I endured that night. More pictures plastered of all the scars on my body.
X-rays showing bones that never healed properly.
My stomach drops.
The world narrows. My breath catches.
The pictures multiply the more I look around. Another on the girls’ bathroom door. Multiple pasted to lockers. One fluttering from a stairwell railing like a flag.
They’re everywhere.
Each one is a crime scene. Each one is me.
I don’t know how I move. I don’t know when I tear one from a wall, hands shaking. My fingers smudge the cheap ink like blood. My own wide eyes stare back at me from the paper — dazed, haunted.
Someone walks past me, laughing. Another turns their face away. I hear the shutter of a phone camera click.
“She’s in the hallway. She saw it!”
“Someone go get a picture—no, video it!”
A voice I don’t recognize mimics a moan. Another says loud enough for me to hear, “I heard she wanted it.”
A hand brushes my shoulder as someone walks past, whispering too close in my ear, “Did it feel good? Or just familiar?”
I whip around — no one’s there. They’re already blending into the crowd, grinning. Phones are out everywhere. Recording. Laughing.
Screens light up with my face, my body, my trauma. Spliced apart into ink and paper, like I’m not even human.
I stagger toward the nearest wall and tear another one down. My fingers tremble so hard I can’t rip it clean. The paper folds and bends and creases and still, there’s so many more.
The hallway closes in around me. Too many eyes. Too many voices.
The ground tilts. My stomach lurches. It’s hard to breathe.
And that’s when I see them. The four boys. Lined up like a painting of apathy and judgment.
Jace in his usual stance, watching a test unfold. Luca’s lips twitch with something that might be amusement or regret. I can’t tell. Noah doesn’t even blink. And Tex… his fists are balled, eyes dark, like he’s ready to swing at the world. But he doesn’t move.
Not one of them does anything. Because they did this. They wanted me to break. To leave.
I push past the whispers. Past the photos. Past the laughter and the horror and the stares. I won’t cry. Not now. Not here.
But every step burns. Every photo is a wound flayed open again. And every photo message screams the same thing:
You are not safe. You are not wanted. You are broken.
I don’t even know how I get back to my room.
Every inch of my body is buzzing.
I kick off my shoes and crawl into bed fully dressed. I drag my blanket up over my head and let the darkness swallow me whole.
For the next week, I order all my meals to my room. I email teachers saying I’m sick. Dakota comes to check on me every day, but I just can’t let her in.
I show up to training because I’m determined to keep improving. But I say nothing. I run drills. I take hits. I hit back harder. Then I leave.
The first day, Noah makes a comment, something half-clever about my silence. I don’t even look at him. Some boys ask if I like it rough.
The next day, Luca makes a joke, I don’t care. I don’t answer. More boys try to proposition me, telling me they’ll give it to me how I like it.
Jace watches me. I feel his eyes following me around. I don’t acknowledge him either.
And Tex—he actually tries.
“Isobel.” Quiet, pleading. Almost remorseful.
But I don’t stop walking. I don’t lift my eyes. I become a ghost moving through a battlefield. Not broken. But not whole either.
The only thing I hear is the sound of the laughter. That too-real memory of hands brushing past, words thrown like knives, and all of them standing there. Watching.
Someone tries to grab me. I turn around and break his nose.
The day after, the four of them linger in the hallway like ghouls. I’m determined to continue ignoring them, keeping my head held high.
Jace sticks his leg out, my hands and knees catching my fall.
“That’s a nice position.” Luca laughs.
“Down at my feet where you belong, Grace.”
Apparently, Jace has had enough of my silence. I spin around and punch him in the balls. He doubles over with a groan, his face level with mine. I grab his pristine shirt and bring him closer to me.
“Don’t ever call me Grace again,” I grit through my teeth.
I push him back. He coughs and heaves deep breaths.
“You’re going to pay for that.” He pants.
“You can keep throwing venom my way, Ravencourt. But it won’t make a difference.” I turn and catch the small smile on Tex’s face.
The torches flicker against stone walls, casting long shadows that dance like specters around the chamber. I stand at the edge of the circle, just like before, but this time, the space between us feels heavier. Different.
Lucian sits at the center dais, his fingers steepled. The others whisper in low tones, the hum of judgment in the air like static before a storm.
The boys are here too — the same boys who turned my life inside out, again.
Jace, silent and stiff, like he’s waiting for a fight. Luca, too still to be bored, too sharp to be calm. Noah, face unreadable behind his mask, but I catch him glancing at me and then looking away. And Tex… not looking at me at all.
I don’t acknowledge them either. I don’t need to. The room settles when Lucian rises.
The normal updates are given. Different sectors, different jobs, different missions. I’m barely listening. Right before the meeting is usually wrapped up Lucian gives me a look that I can’t decipher.
“There has been… discord among some of our initiates.”
His voice is cold. Controlled.
“Acts unbecoming. Lines crossed. And though we do not regulate personal disputes, there are codes we do not violate — even among thieves.”
A beat of silence.
“What happened this past week—the distribution of unauthorized material involving a Guild initiate—is not just a cruelty. It is a breach of discretion. Of honor.”
The word hits the room like a dropped dagger. Honor.
I stare ahead, jaw locked.
Lucian continues. “Trust is currency in our world. Without it, we are nothing but rabid dogs with knives.”
He surveys us all. “So. You want to play the game? Fine. Play together.”
A shuffle, murmurs between the elders.
“Ravencourt, Ward, Silvain, Vexley.”
“Sir,” they answer in unison.
“Recite our creed.”
“Honor amongst thieves, bound by blood.”
Lucian nods.
“Your second initiation will be completed as a team. You rise as one… or you fall as one.”
I glance sideways — Jace’s jaw ticks. Tex dares to look at me.
I don’t give him anything.
Lucian’s voice cuts again. “You’ve all passed your first tasks, but the Guild does not function on solo acts. Trust—whether earned or forced—is nonnegotiable.”
His gaze sweeps across each of us. Jace. Luca. Tex. Noah. And finally, me.
“Your second initiation will be completed as a unit.”
Jace shifts beside me, jaw tight.
“You will infiltrate a secured convoy transporting black market weapon prototype—originally stolen from the Guild. These people are highly dangerous. Lethal. And the buyer is a known Guild traitor. You are to infiltrate, retrieve, and return the cargo.”
My throat tightens.
“If one of you fails,” Lucian says evenly, “you all fail. And failure…means removal from the Guild track. Permanently.”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
“The route is protected. Armed. And mobile. You’ll have to strike fast, in coordination, and adapt in real time. You leave tomorrow at nightfall. You will be supervised, and if you so need it, they will step in and help you. But you are all driving this mission. Act as if they aren’t there.”
No further questions are allowed. Barely time to breathe. The boys begin to filter out.
Jace is the last to go, tossing one last sharp glance over his shoulder as if expecting me to follow. I don’t.
Lucian doesn’t look at me right away. He waits until the heavy iron doors seal with a deep groan, until the hush of the chamber settles like dust in the air.
Then he speaks. “Gracie.”
His voice is softer now, no longer the Guild master addressing his initiates, but a father speaking to his daughter. I turn to face him but I don’t approach. My shoulders are tight, my arms crossed to hold myself together.
He steps down from the dais slowly, revealing the weary lines around his eyes. He looks furious. And regretful.
“I should have stopped this before it got this far.”
I don’t respond. I’m too tired. Too raw.
Lucian sighs, rubbing a hand down his jaw. “I’ve let you walk into fire expecting you to endure it… and you have. But what they did… those photos…”
His jaw flexes, barely contained anger beneath his calm.
“It crossed every line this Guild holds sacred.”
I swallow hard.
“Why didn’t you say something before? Why didn’t you stop them?”
Lucian’s eyes meet mine. “Because I needed to know who they were when no one was watching. And I needed them to see who you are without my shield.”
I blink, stunned. A twisted kind of test.
“So, I’m your pawn.”
“No,” he says instantly. “You’re my daughter.”
He steps closer. “And I’ve seen enough to know this place doesn’t deserve you yet. But that will change.”