CHAPTER TWENTY
RAVEN
The old copper pipe groans beneath the weight of the wrench in my hand before finally giving way with a satisfying crack.
About fucking time. I wipe the back of my wrist across my forehead before crouching beside the shallow trench I’d dug earlier, following the line running from the cemetery’s ancient water main toward the side of the house.
The earth is still covered in a layer of snow, melting away in places, softening the frozen ground just enough to make the work a little easier.
Most men would have hired someone to do this, but there’s a lot of incriminating shit that can be found here and I don’t like visitors.
By spring, if we’re lucky enough to make it that far, there will be running water out here.
Enough for grass to grow between the headstones.
Wildflowers if she insists. Vegetables if she can convince me they’re worth the effort.
She’d already spent two evenings wandering the edge of the clearing, pointing at patches of frozen ground with an eagerness I’ve never had.
“Foxgloves,” she’d said, and I didn’t even know what the hell they were.
She’d smiled to herself before gesturing toward the cemetery gates, because apparently, they’re in need of an upgrade. She tried to convince me to let her do these things herself, but I dismissed that idea immediately.
So here I am.
Installing a tap.
The sort of ordinary task I’d never have bothered with if it wasn’t for her.
Strange.
Two weeks ago, this place was nothing more than somewhere I retreated to between jobs.
Four walls standing in the middle of a forgotten forest. A place to wash the blood from my hands before replacing it with someone else’s the following day.
Now, I’m searching for places where my little ghost can plant flowers.
I never noticed how much sunlight reached the eastern side of the cemetery until she pointed it out.
Never cared which trees stole the warmth from the earth or where the snow melted first. All I cared about was how deep I could bury a body before I started to run out of room.
I don’t hear her footsteps over the sound of the wrench.
I simply feel her. A quiet warmth settled somewhere behind me.
“You missed one.”
I glance over my shoulder. She’s standing on the porch, sleeves swallowing her hands, a mug balanced carefully between both palms. My jumper hangs from her frame almost to her knees, her hair caught up in a loose braid that already looks as though it’s trying to escape.
“I missed what?”
She nods toward the toolbox sitting three feet to my left.
“The spanner.”
“I don’t need a spanner.”
“I know. Just making sure you knew what you were doing,” she says, laughing as she walks down to where I am.
“If you’re going to stand there criticizing my work, you can at least make yourself useful,” I say jokingly, smiling over my shoulder before looking back to the pipe in my hands.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
She carefully makes her way down the icy steps before crouching beside the open toolbox.
“There are far too many silver things in here.”
“They all have names.”
“They all look the same to me.”
“They absolutely do not.”
She holds up the first one she grabs.
“This?”
“No.”
“What about this one?”
I sigh dramatically. “Ghost.”
“What.”
“You’re doing this on purpose.”
Her grin grows wider.
“I might be.”
I shake my head, rising to my feet before removing the screwdriver from her hand and tossing it onto the ground beside the trench.
I gaze down at her, one hand cradles the mug, the other now rests gently against my chest. The need to follow her inside is almost compelling.
Not because I’m finished out here, but because she’s in there.
“Go inside,” I murmur. “It’s freezing out here.”
She smiles, one that lights up her whole face.
“I’m used to it.”
“You shouldn’t have to be.”
The distant crunch of tires rolling over frozen gravel tears through the silence of the forest. Every muscle in my body locks.
The smile slips from her face and her fingers are moving, gripping tightly to my wrist, her eyes searching mine as the color slowly drains from her face.
Worry settles there first. Then uncertainty.
She doesn’t know what could be coming for her. For us, only that someone is.
“It’s okay,” I say quietly, forcing my voice to remain steady despite the pulse hammering in my chest. I cup her cheek, my thumb gently brushing the side of her face. ‘Don’t be afraid.”
“Raven...”
“Shh…” I hold her gaze until I feel her breathing begin to steady. “I’ve got you.”
My mind is already ten steps ahead. There are only a handful of people who know this road exists.
Fewer still who’d come without calling first. Whoever is behind that wheel could be family.
Or they could be someone sent to make sure the fucking job was finished, though I say none of this to the terrified woman in my arms.
If they see her. If they recognize her… The lie we've been living dies here.
“Listen to me.” My hands settle on either side of her face, making sure she hears every word. “Go inside. Stay away from the windows. Don’t answer the door unless it’s me.”
She swallows. “What if—”
“There is no what if.” My voice is calm, but firm enough to stop the question before it takes root in her mind. “If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide. You hide. Okay?”
Her wide, worried eyes linger on mine for one long heartbeat before she nods.
“Okay,”
“Good girl.”
I wait until she disappears through the front door before turning back toward the road, every instinct I’d spent years working on slipping effortlessly back into place.
Whatever peace I’d found over the past fortnight or so evaporates with the sound of the approaching engine.
Whatever is coming… I’ll make damn sure it never reaches her.
The dark truck rounds the final bend before rolling to a stop outside the cemetery gates, the engine idling for only a moment before falling silent. I don’t move.
The driver’s door opens, and the first thing I see is a familiar black boot hitting the ground. Then, dark hair.
I could fucking kill her.
Katia looks up, spots me standing beside the trench, and immediately breaks into a smile before lifting one hand into an overly enthusiastic wave.
“Hey, brother!”
I don’t wave back. I’m too busy glaring at her through the cemetery gates, hoping she slips on a piece of fucking ice for almost giving me a damn heart attack.
“Well, fuck,” she says dramatically. “Who shat all over your bagel?” she says, noticing my obvious annoyance at her unannounced arrival.
“You.”
She clutches a hand to her chest, stopping in her tracks as though I’ve mortally wounded her before beginning her walk up the path that leads to where I stand.
“What can I do for you, Katia?” I sigh, shoving my hands into the pockets of my baggy sweats. Her eyes slowly roll over me, taking in the dirt covering my clothes, then shrugging it off. Good thing I dig graves for a living.
“You look like shit.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“No.” She narrows her brown eyes at me, giving me one of her famous looks that have most people sweating. But she’s the last person on the planet that can rattle me. “You look…happy.”
I don’t answer. Katia has always been annoyingly good at reading people.
Something we usually have in common. Unfortunately for me, she’s reading me now.
And I actually have something to hide for once.
She lets the silence drag on just long enough to make things feel ten times more uncomfortable then they need to be before glancing around the cemetery.
Her eyes fall to the trench I dug earlier.
“Are you gardening?”
I shrug, watching as her gaze drifts over the headstones and the remnants of broken stone and discarded debris I’m yet to dispose of that had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the woman hiding inside my house.
“Something like that.”
She follows the fresh line carved through the snow, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly as it disappears toward the side of the house.
My stomach sinks when her gaze lifts. Mine follows it.
Standing in the window, peaking through the lace curtains is my little ghost, one hand curled around the timber frame, watching us with quiet curiosity.
Fuck.
The second she realizes Katia is looking straight at her, her eyes widen, panic flashing across her face before she disappears, the curtain swaying gently behind her, and my heart damn near stops.
Slowly, Katia turns back to me, her eyes impossibly wide.
“I hope you know what you’re doing there,” she says carefully, and I don’t miss the worry in her tone. Katia has always been protective over me. She’s a little older, but not by much, yet she’s been like a mother figure for most of my life. I hold her stare.
“You saw nothing.”
A beat passes between us and I watch as her brows knit together, confusion giving way to concern, then something far more dangerous. Understanding.
“Got it?”
She doesn’t answer straight away, instead, she studies me, looking for some sort of explanation that she knows I will not give her, then her eyes flick back up to the window. Piecing together a puzzle she has no business knowing about. Slowly, she lets out a quiet breath through her nose.
“I got it,” she says at last. “But this…” Her eyes linger on mine as her expression changes to one I’ve only seen a handful of times before. Fear. “I hope you know what you’re doing, little brother.”
“I do.”