Chapter 1
Chapter One
Phoenix
The city breathes smoke and shadow this time of night. Not the kind from bourbon-soaked bar windows or gutter steam. No, this is older. Deeper. Like the bones of New Orleans are remembering something they buried too fast. Something that claws at the surface that comes during Halloween.
I let my throttle rise just enough to stay ahead of Ghost. Not out of spite, but out of instinct. Space helps me think. It helps me breathe. I should’ve kicked in that door earlier.
The moment I saw his hands covered in blood, a voice in my head whispered, “Too late.”
He said it wasn’t his. He didn’t say whose it was. And the silence that followed? It’s a rusted knife in my gut.
We weave through empty streets, our engines echoing off crumbling brick and neon. Ghost rides behind me, steady, disciplined. Like a man pretending everything’s fine. Like muscle memory’s all he has left.
I know that kind of lie. I lived it for years.
My comm crackles, and I click it on.
“Where are we going?” Ghost asks.
“Somewhere the dark can’t follow,” I lie.
The truth is, there’s nowhere safe in this city. Not with his past bubbling up like swamp rot. Not when the only thing more dangerous than the things we killed are the ones we didn’t.
I kill the engine when we reach the old ferry docks by the levee. The air smells like rust and riverweed. Good. Familiar. Nothing cursed here except the ghosts we bring with us.
Ghost pulls up beside me, but he doesn’t speak.
I don’t look at him right away. I let the silence stretch like a rubber band that’s tight, tense, and inevitable.
“Have you ever sleepwalked before?” I finally ask.
“Not like that.”
“Have you ever woken up covered in blood?”
A pause. “...No.”
I nod. Not like I expected better. “Something’s wrong with you, Ghost.”
“I know.”
That stops me. I turn and finally face him. The moonlight hits his jaw, cuts him open in silver and shadow. He looks... tired. Hollow.
“Then tell me what it is.”
“I can’t. It’s not a memory. It’s a feeling. A place. I keep seeing Vale and Raven, but it’s not really them. Like something is wearing their skin.” He swallows hard, voice low. “They keep saying I belong to them.”
I step close enough that I can see the tremble in his hands before he clenches them into fists.
“You belong to me,” I say quietly. “Not to the past. Not to them.”
His eyes find mine. Blue-gray storm clouds, shot through with guilt. “Then help me fight whatever this is. Because I don’t think I can outrun it anymore.”
I nod once. “Good. Then we fight it. Together.”
But as the wind kicks up and the levee groans behind us, I swear I hear something whisper my name, but when I turn, no one’s there.
Ghost hears my breath hitch, but he doesn’t ask why. Instead, he sits on the edge of the concrete ledge overlooking the Mississippi. Hands braced behind him, his back to the city. Like the river’s the only thing keeping him from unraveling.
I don’t sit. I pace. One, two, three steps toward the edge. The dock creaks under my boots, the wind kicking my hair into my face.
“You said it felt like a place,” I say without looking at him. “The thing in the dream.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Not here. Not New Orleans. But familiar. Like something I almost remember. Something buried.”
I finally sit beside him. Close, but not touching. We stare at the slow, dark pull of the water.
“You think someone did something to you?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I mean, yeah. Probably. When Vale turned, when Raven turned, nothing about that part of my life makes sense anymore.”
“You think you were drugged?”
He exhales hard. “It’s not drugs. Or not just that. This... whatever this is, it feels like it’s watching me through them. Vale and Raven. Like they’re puppets, and something worse is pulling strings.”
I go still. “You think this is supernatural.”
He turns his head toward me. Not mockingly. Not dismissive.
“I don’t know what I believe. I used to think everything could be explained. Motive. Evidence. The chain of violence. But now? I’m not so sure. This,” Ghost holds up his palm, clean now but tight with memory. “This doesn’t feel like something I can arrest or reason with.”
We sit with that. The idea that something else is hunting him, and maybe us by extension.
“The Non Cras doesn’t scare easily,” I say after a long stretch. “We’ve killed men who thought they were gods.”
“Yeah. But have you ever fought something that doesn’t bleed?”
That lands differently, so I don’t answer.
Ghost shifts beside me, voice softer now. “When you saw me bloody and shaking, not knowing what the hell happened, what did you feel?”
I blink slowly. “Rage,” I admit. “Fear. Not of you, but for you.”
That surprises him. He turns to really look at me. “You think I can be saved?”
I face him square. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
There’s a long pause. Ghost nods once, sharp, like sealing a pact. “So what happens now?”
“Now,” I say, standing, “we go back. We regroup. Gypsy’s been digging into the symbols Raven left behind. Viper’s checking the old safehouse footage. If something’s pulling strings, we’ll find it.”
“And if it’s not something we can kill?”
I meet Ghost’s gaze. Cold. Certain. “Then we learn how.”
Ghost stands beside me, brushing dust from his jeans. For a second, he looks like the Ghost I first met, dangerous and ready to burn everything down.
But then he glances at me. And just for a breath, he lets himself be scared.
“You think it’s coming back tonight?” he asks.
“No,” I say, starting toward the bikes. I catch my reflection in the chrome, and a dark shadow passes over my features. “I think it never left.”