Chapter 21 The Present #3
He looks past me, toward the stretch of dark trees, the smear of town lights, the blinking red eye of a cell tower in the distance.
“Everyone I ever cared about died,” he says quietly.
The wind catches his words, softens them, but they still hit me square in the chest.
Everyone I ever cared about died.
I wait. I don’t press. I just lean my shoulder against his. After a moment, he presses back, barely.
“I guess that one was inevitable,” he says after a while. “She was already old. But… I lost my grandmother when I was thirteen.”
The blanket slips, and he tucks it tighter around my legs without looking.
“She used to say I was born with engine noise in my ears. Said I’d either fix things or crash them, and either way, I’d do it fast.” He exhales, a small laugh caught in the sound.
“My mom came and went. Never knew my dad. Gran was… the whole house. She taught me everything she could. Didn’t want me ending up like her daughter.
Spent half her time making sure I stayed clean. Kept me clean.”
My mouth lifts. “Sounds like she cared about you a lot.”
“Yeah. She did what she could,” he says, voice rougher now. “She knew I could go off the rails easy. My mom was an addict, so Gran started labeling everything in the house when I was little, just in case I ever followed her path.”
My chest tightens. I can picture him as a kid, alone with his grandmother. Kind of like me, but in a completely different world.
“Anyway,” Talon says, “you probably don’t know what it’s like in a neighborhood where bad luck just keeps falling on people.
My home wasn’t like your side of town. Your grandma’s place was spotless.
Proper. Ours was the size of a shoebox, and after she died, the landlord tried to kick me out even though she’d prepaid three months of rent just in case. ”
He pauses, takes a slow sip from his tumbler, and lets the tequila linger on his tongue.
“I kept some of my promises to her, though,” he says quietly. “Never touched drugs. Always kept a roof over my head. One way or another.”
My heart beats faster. I’d never have guessed he’d come from that. You look at him and the first thing you think is trouble. A cocky bastard who flirts his way through life, not someone who’s ever had to survive anything.
“After Gran, I bounced around,” he goes on.
“Found kids like me. Got fast. Gangs, runs, races. Always wanted to honor her, but… my options were kind of limited back then. Looking back, if I hadn’t crossed paths with this dock rat named Fisher, maybe things would’ve gone different.
But I got a taste for the quick life, and it stuck. ”
I take a smaller sip than he did.
“Fisher? I’m guessing he wasn’t exactly a fan of the law?”
Talon turns his head and gives me this look, eyebrows drawn, like I just said something strange. He stops fiddling with the glass entirely, just stares.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” He shakes his head, faint smile tugging at his mouth. “Sometimes I forget what a good girl you were.”
“Past tense,” I mutter. “Keep going.”
He huffs a quiet laugh, then his expression darkens a little. “Yeah, he helped me go full gangster for a while. Real piece of work, that guy.”
“What happened to him?”
“Man…” Talon scoffs, chuckling under his breath. “No idea. Probably dead. Doesn’t matter. Never gave a shit about him anyway.”
But the laugh fades out slow, like it runs out of gas. His gaze drifts back to the skyline. softer and heavier now, like he’s turning something over in his head before speaking again.
He rolls the tumbler between his palms once. Twice. Then finally says,
“…there were two more people.”
The way he says it tells me I shouldn’t interrupt.
“I was sixteen,” he goes on. “Found this car, or at least, that’s what I thought mattered the most back then. A Camaro. Black. Sleek. The one you’re so obsessed with. One of those rare things that makes you think, If I get my hands on that, everything changes.”
The black car? The one he said he won in a race?
His mouth pulls faintly. “And just as I was about to steal it, this girl, around my age, walks up.”
He falls quiet for a moment, thumb tracing the rim of the glass.
“I know you think I’m a scary fucker now, but back then? I had nothing left to lose. People could tell. They stayed the hell away. But she just walked right up and said the car was hers.”
“Where’d she get it from?” I ask.
He huffs a small laugh. “No idea. I’m guessing she stole it herself. By the time I found it, it was already half-dead. Looked perfect on the outside, but the engine was wrecked. She told me I could fix it, if I knew what I was doing. And I… stayed.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. First time I wasn’t wanted for muscle or speed or hustle. Just… for what I could do. My hands. What I could build. So instead of boosting the car, I tuned it. For months. Kept telling myself I’d sell it later. After one more run. One more night behind the wheel.”
He turns to me then.
“She wasn’t my soulmate or anything like that. I wasn’t in love. I didn’t even know what that meant back then. But she was the first person who felt like more than concrete under my feet. The first person who made me think I could be… not good, exactly. But maybe something more than wreckage.”
His throat works around the next words, like they’re scraping their way out.
“And because of that—because I wanted the rush more than I cared about what could happen—I agreed to go with her into Rey’s territory for a race we should never have touched. And she died because of my enemies. Bled out all over that car.”
I don’t know who Rey was, or what his territory meant, but it doesn’t matter. His pain hits just the same.
“Rhea was different, though,” he says suddenly.
My brows knit together.
“The other person?” I ask.
He nods faintly. “Yeah. Three years later, I thought maybe I could afford to care again. After Lark, I swore I’d never let anyone that close.
She taught me that the moment you let someone take up more than a corner of your mind, you hand them a target.
So I made myself a promise—don’t love. Love means loss. And loss means… worse.”
“You promised?” I ask quietly.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I promised I’d never fall in love. Trouble’s my second name, you know?”
The sound that escapes him isn’t really laughter. It’s dry, brittle, pretending to be a joke.
“Hell, I even prayed once that I’d meet a ghost. No heartbeat, no leaving me in the dark. Can’t kill what’s already dead, right?”
He laughs again, softer this time, but his eyes stay locked on mine.
A ghost… like me?
I try to picture it: him, years ago, still breathing and broken, wishing for someone who didn’t exist yet. Someone I would become.
It’s insane.
And somehow, it makes my heart skip.
They say in every tragedy there’s something good. As if the universe shoves you through pain just to move the boulder sitting in your chest. Only if it hits hard enough.
“Be careful what you wish for,” I whisper.
He meets my gaze and scoffs. “If you mean that now you’re here, and my ‘hot-ass ghost’ can actually bleed, then yeah… joke’s on me. I kind of wanted you to be invincible. So you’d never get hurt.”
His fingers find mine, threading through them. They’re so goddamn cold.
“Anyway,” he says after a pause, voice low, almost ashamed, “this is the first time I’ve ever told anyone all this.
Even the guys only know I’ve lost people.
Not how.” He takes a breath that trembles.
“Rhea got caught in a gang mess back home. Two crews at war, and one thought hurting me meant taking her. Rey’s boys broke into her apartment while I was out on a job. They killed her.”
He looks down, jaw tightening. “After that… I found them. Hunted them. You can probably guess what came next.”
“Something not very lawful, huh?” I say, trying for a soft joke.
I can guess what really happened just fine.
What gets me isn’t the violence—it’s how young he must’ve been.
Early twenties, maybe. That’s supposed to be the age of making mistakes, not burying people you love.
I mean, I have to believe that—otherwise how do I explain being so damn gullible with my ex-husband? I was still learning how life worked.
Talon didn’t get that luxury. He was thrown into the deep end and never even saw the shore.
And if he lived in a world where death was a commodity…
No wonder he came out like this.
“What, not even a grimace?” he asks, searching my face. “I just confessed to multiple murders, a tragic backstory, and that I was originally into you because you were dead—and you’re just sitting there?”
I think about it for a beat.
“You know what? You’re right.” I grab the bottle, take a long swig, and let the burn tear its way down my throat before handing it back. “There. Is that a better reaction?”
His eyes go half-lidded, gaze soft and sharp all at once, like he’s seeing me for the first time, and like he’s known me forever.
“No, but really,” he murmurs. “What do you think of me now? Any change of heart?”
I dig around in my chest for the answer.
The sense of newness is still there. So is the burn in my stomach.
His hand is steady against mine, the air cool, the taste of revenge against Mark still sweet…
But nothing about him feels different. No disgust. No shock.
Just surprise, maybe. And something gentler underneath.
“I’m glad you told me,” I say finally. “Really.”
“That’s it?” he presses.
I give a small laugh. “What do you want me to say, Talon? I knew you were a messed-up murderer from the start. Somehow, I still ended up liking you. And all that—” I wave vaguely at the air between us—“that’s in the past anyway.
” I pause, smirking. “Unless you still see me as your fair-game ghost. In which case, we might have a problem.”
He exhales, drops his head, then lifts it to the sky before looking back at me.
“Hell, no,” he says. One heartbeat later, he’s right in front of me, eyes locked on mine with that burning focus that steals the air out of my lungs. “I’m in love with you, Skye. You’re not a ghost to me. You’re it. The love of my life.”
The words hit hard and fast.
“Talon…”
“I mean it,” he says, voice lower now. “I’m fucking wrecked for you.”
My heart skips a beat, then another.
“Are you sure?” I ask quietly. “I’ve been married. I know how—”
“Don’t compare me to that lowlife, Mark.” His tone cuts through mine. “I know what this is, Skye. If I could throw it all away and just be a Grim Reaper with you forever, I would. We’d take the guys, sign a deal with Death himself, and just… exist. Together. That’s all I want.”
The tequila burns warm in my ribs like an ember. I lift my hand to his cheek. It’s rough under the blood he missed when he cleaned up. He leans into my touch, eyes closing for a second.
“Say it again,” I murmur.
He opens his eyes. “I’m in love with you, Skye.”
Something inside me… something that’s been pacing for what feels like forever, finally sits still. I let out the breath I’ve been hoarding since the first time he called me Little Grim and I thought my existence was ruined. But this isn’t ruin. It’s the goddamn opposite.
“Okay,” I say, because it’s the only word that feels right. “Okay.”
He blinks. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I repeat, taking his hand and placing it back over my sternum where he put it earlier. “I accept.”
The sound he makes is half laugh, half groan. He bows his head until his forehead rests against mine.
“This isn’t how it works, Little Grim,” he murmurs. “You’re supposed to say something back. At least let me know where I stand.”
My throat tightens.
He’s right. I should.
My palms start to sweat.
“I think it goes without saying,” I whisper.
He pulls back, cups my face between both hands.
“Believe me,” he says, low and rough, “it doesn’t.”
I kiss him.
It’s not a neat kiss. His hand tangles in my hair, the other digs into my ribs where the belt he tied still bites. I catch his lower lip between my teeth until he groans.
“How about that?” I whisper.
He chuckles, breath ghosting against my mouth.
“Come on, Skye,” he murmurs. “Don’t be a little coward. Not now, alright?”
I suck in a breath.
Fuck.
Both my heart and my body squeeze at once.
“I love you too,” I blurt out. It comes out like I’m choking for air, so I say it again. “I love you too.”
Everything in him stills except his eyes. Mischief blows out like a candle in a draft, then flickers back, smaller, truer, different.
“Oh,” he says softly. “Oh, Little Grim.”
He leans in and kisses me again, slower this time. The tequila on his tongue has turned into something warm. When he finally pulls back, he looks at me the way men in Renaissance paintings look at the ones they love. Like yearning could outlast time itself.
“Say it again,” he whispers.
“Greedy,” I accuse, but my mouth is already smiling like it forgot how not to. “I love you.”
“Fuck,” he breathes. “Is there anything you want right now? Just say it. I’ll give you the fucking moon.”
“Mhm, because that’s a completely reasonable thing to promise.”
“I don’t give a shit if it’s reasonable,” he says. “Either I give you what you want or I die trying.”
I pause, considering. The answer’s already waiting on my tongue.
“How about that specialty of yours?” I say.
He raises a brow, amused.
“You know…” I clarify, voice low. “Make me feel alive.”
That’s all it takes this time.
He answers with a sinful little nod, thumbs finding the knots he tied earlier. The belt slips free. The towel loosens. The wind catches on the edge of me, and he catches the rest, guiding me back down to the blanket.
When it’s cold as hell, he makes me warm.
When I need it most, he’s all vow and worship.
Talon does what Talon does best, and for a few bare moments, it feels like the universe finally pays out on all our terrible, terrible bargains.
Just like that—with the taste of salt and citrus and him, one of my terrifying-as-fuck serial killers—the thought from before circles back into my mind.
Checkmate.
Only this time, the thing I want to defeat isn’t fate.
It’s the past.
His past.
It can’t touch him anymore.
Because now, he’s all mine.