Page 123 of A Witchy Spell Ride

“Not his,” I said.

Ghost’s hand found the small of my back. “Never.”

Reaper’s eyes found mine, silent question, silent answer. He nodded once, almost a bow. Bones offered me a water bottle with the solemnity of communion. I drank, throat raw, and let the cold settle the shake in my hands.

Then I turned back to Briggs, because I wasn’t done with the part that mattered to me.

“Listen carefully,” I said. “You will tell Cross every detail. Every time you followed me. Every time you touched something that was mine. Every name you used for the van, the magnets, the gloves. You will not make poetry of it. You will not ask for forgiveness. You will not offer explanations. You will stick to facts, or I will come to your cell and teach you a vocabulary that includes silence.”

His eyes filled. “Will you… visit?”

“Only if the court allows knitting needles,” I said flatly, “and you don’t want that version of me.”

Vex made a choking sound that was definitely a laugh this time. Reaper didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth did something that acknowledged my existence as someone who could scare him if we played the wrong game.

“Let’s go,” Ghost said, the heat easing out of him, replaced by the kind of calm that comes after you almost lose God and find her again. “You’re getting checked out.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Humor me,” he said, and the please in it was a whole language he didn’t say out loud.

I let him guide me toward the door, then paused. I bent, picked up the lipstick Briggs had stolen from my purse, and pocketed it. It was my favorite red. It looked better on me than on his altar.

At the threshold, I looked back one last time. The candles were guttering, smoke smearing the air, the shrine a sad, cheap thing once you took the horror out of it. Briggs looked small. Not helpless. Small. I wanted to remember him that way, not like a shadow.

I lifted two fingers in a mock benediction. “I forgive you nothing,” I said.

Then I stepped into the night.

The cold hit my cheeks like truth. The bikes shivered in the lot like big cats. The sky was a bruise that would fade. Ghost’s hand settled at my waist again, quiet, sure. He didn’t ask if I needed to be carried. I didn’t pretend I hadn’t just rewritten the ending myself.

Back at the clubhouse, Briar would throw her arms around me and cuss me out for scaring her, then hold me so tight my ribs creaked. Cross would hand me tea I didn’t want and ask for details I didn’t want to give, and I’d give them anyway because we close loops here. Reaper would stand in a doorway and not speak for a long time, and when he did, he’d say, “Good,” like a man saying grace.

And me?

I’d wash my hands. I’d sleep when I could. I’d wear red whenever I felt like it.

Not because I was sad.

Because it looks like war paint on me.

Because I chose it.

Chapter Thirty-One

Ghost

Briggs was cuffed, bloodied, and wheezing like a man who knew his last breath would come slow.

Reaper didn’t even look at him.

He looked at me.

“You want the patch?”

My chest was still heaving. My knuckles were split open from the last two punches, one for the heel on tile, one for the fear in her voice I’d only heard in my nightmares. Blood stung, sweat burned, the old war drum in my ribs finally quieting now that I had a target and a conclusion.

“Yeah.”