Chapter 34
Before I knew it, I was standing in front of the house we were staying in again.
I remember I stopped before the steps. Close enough that I could see the smudges on the lower windows, where hands had touched glass at some point and never wiped it clean again.
Close enough that I could see the front door properly.
The brass handle dulled, a faint streak under it where something had run down and dried.
It looked normal in that way houses pretend to be, even when they’re not.
I stood there, hands in my pockets, shoulders a little tense. I didn’t notice it until later, but I remember my jaw hurting, like I’d been clenching it too hard for too long. And the thought that kept circling in my head wasn’t about the house. It was about him.
Zwierek.
I knew even before I opened that door, that he wasn’t going to take it well.
There wasn’t a version of this where he nodded, accepted it, moved on.
I hadn’t done what we came there to do, instead I walked away, and that was going to be a problem.
What got under my skin wasn’t even that, it was how much I cared.
That part pissed me off more than anything else standing there.
I should’ve been able to shrug it off. Walk in, say it, let him deal with it however he wanted, and not give a shit what he thought after.
Instead, I stood outside the door like I was about to get judged.
Like it mattered, like he mattered in a way he shouldn’t.
I hated the fact that somewhere along the way, I had started measuring myself against him.
That there was something in me that still wanted his approval, even after everything.
Even after seeing exactly what he was capable of, even after being part of it.
That’s the worst part, little Ghost. It’s not just that he’s there, it’s that I let him be.
I leaned on him, let him fill space. The kind of space you don’t notice until it’s occupied, and suddenly it’s hard to imagine it empty again.
That’s what I hated. That I couldn’t just cut it, end it.
Tell him to go to hell and mean it. Because when I imagined it, really imagined it, there was something in me that resisted.
That should’ve told me everything I needed to know.
I exhaled slowly and finally moved. Up the steps, one at a time, the wood creaking under my weight in a way that sounded too loud for how still everything else was.
The closer I got to the door, the more I noticed the smell.
At first I thought it was just the house.
Old air, something stale, but then it hit properly.
Heavy and wrong in the back of my throat.
I stopped for half a second with my hand on the handle.
That smell, it came from below, from the basement.
I pushed the door open anyway. The air inside was thicker.
It sat differently, warmer, but not in a comforting way, it clung.
The smell was stronger now, unavoidable, woven into everything.
The walls, the furniture, the floor, it didn’t belong to one place anymore.
I stopped inside and closed the door behind me, the click echoed through the house and the walls inside my head, and then… nothing.
I stood there for a moment, just listening.
My stomach turned, the smell pressing harder now that I wasn’t moving.
It sat at the back of my tongue, metallic and sweet at the same time, and I had to swallow to keep it down.
Still, that wasn’t the worst part, not even close, because underneath all of it, was the thought of having to find him, of having to say it out loud.
That I didn’t do it, that I walked away, that I chose something else.
That part twisted deeper than the smell ever could.
I took a step forward, then another, and that’s when I heard it. Faint, coming from below. I froze. My head turned slowly toward the basement door at the end of the hallway. There it was again, a sound. I frowned, my eyes narrowing as I stared at the door.
What the fuck was he doing down there?
I remember the handle felt colder than the rest of the house.
Metal against my palm, slightly damp, maybe from the air down there, maybe something else.
I didn’t think about it too long, I just pulled the door open.
And yeah, the smell before? That was nothing.
This hit like walking straight into something solid.
It hit.
Thick, wet, wrong in a way that made my body react before I even had time to think about it.
My stomach flipped hard and I instinctively dragged my shirt up over my nose and mouth, pressing the fabric tight against my face like that was going to do anything.
The stairs cracked under me as I went down.
My hand slid along the wall at one point, fingertips brushing over something uneven in the paint, but I didn’t look.
My focus stayed down, on what was waiting, and when I reached the bottom, I saw him.
Zwierek stood with his back hunched, leaning forward like he was studying something closely.
Still, focused in that way he gets when the rest of the world might as well not exist. The room looked worse, everything did.
The air was heavier down there, like it had nowhere to go.
It just sat, thick and humid, carrying that smell in a way that made it feel almost visible.
And her, I could see enough from where I stood.
The body had changed, skin no longer sitting the way it should.
I didn’t say anything, just stood there, watched.
Zwierek didn’t turn around, but he knew I was there.
“There are maggots in her now.”
I didn’t answer, I just kept looking, at him, at what he was standing over. At the way his hands rested near her, not touching, but close enough that it didn’t matter. A few seconds passed, then he straightened and turned around, his eyes landed on me immediately.
“Where’s your father?”
The way he said it, like there was only one correct answer. I frowned, lowering my shirt just enough to speak.
“In his house,” I said. “Where else would he be?”
His eyes stayed on me for a moment before he spoke.
“You didn’t leave his body there, did you?”
I didn’t answer with words, but something in my face must’ve said it for me, because Zwierek’s expression shifted. He let out a short laugh, but there was no humor in it. None.
“All these fucking years,” he muttered, shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. “All these fucking years I’ve known you,”
He took a step closer.
“Let you sit there with your books, your thoughts, all that useless shit you fill your head with,” Another step.
“And you’re still this fucking stupid?”
He just looked at me like nothing had changed, like the air hadn’t just split open between us.
I could still smell it. Rot. Thick and sweet and wrong, crawling into the back of my throat every time I breathed in.
It clung to everything down there, the walls, the floor, the inside of my mouth.
I swallowed against it, jaw tight enough to ache.
“He’s not dead, Zwierek.”
My voice came out lower than I expected, like I was holding something back and it was leaking through anyway.
There was a wet sound behind him when he moved.
I didn’t look at it. I kept my eyes locked on him instead.
On the way his shoulders settled, on the way his head tilted just a little, like he was adjusting his angle on something he didn’t quite understand yet.
Or maybe something he understood too well. His eyes found mine and stayed there.
“And why,” he said slowly, “is he not dead?”
Each word spaced out carefully, like he was tasting them before letting them land. I exhaled through my nose, but it didn’t help. The smell was still there. The pressure in my chest was still there, everything felt too tight, like my own body was closing in on me.
”It’s not what we thought,” I said.
That sounded wrong the second it left me. Too weak.
“He’s not,” I stopped, dragged a hand over my face, rough, trying to force the words into place. They didn’t want to sit still. They kept slipping, like they didn’t belong to me anymore.
“He didn’t… he tried,” I said finally, pushing through it.
“He did what he could, it wasn’t enough, no, but… he,” My throat tightened, fucking useless. I clenched my teeth harder.
“He’s not that,” I finished. “He’s not what we said he was.”
Zwierek didn’t react, didn’t blink, didn’t even fucking breathe, it felt like. He just stood there, looking at me like I had just said something mildly interesting. “And you believe that?” he asked, still calm.
Like he was already three steps ahead of me and just waited to see how long it would take before I realized it.
I didn’t answer. I didn't trust my voice not to betray something I didn’t fully understand myself.
My brow pulled in slightly, not even on purpose.
Something shifting under my skin that I couldn’t get a grip on.
The silence stretched so long it felt like it started to crawl.
Then, something in him changed, like something snapped in his chest.
“You believe that?” he repeated, but this time his voice cracked open, loud enough to hit the walls and come back distorted. I didn’t flinch and I didn’t step back, but something inside me twisted, hard.
“Are you actually that fucking stupid, Rowan?” he snapped, taking a step toward me, fast enough that my body reacted before I did, muscles pulling tight, ready for something I couldn’t name.
“Your whole life,” he went on, his voice rising, breaking at the edges, “your whole miserable fucking life people have used you and you still stand there like an idiot trying to make excuses for them.”
I felt that familiar prickle under my skin, like needles, like something waking up. “Krystyna,” he said, and there was something almost amused in his voice. “You remember her, don’t you?”