Page 20 of A Witchy Spell Ride

Her laugh echoed through the shop. And I pretended I wasn’t lying. That night, the dream came back. The hand on my back. The heat at my throat. The voice, low, rough, whispering things I couldn’t remember when I woke.

Only this time, I swore I saw his face. Not Ghost’s. Not anyone I knew. Just shadow, shaped into something hungry.

I woke with sweat slicking my skin, the charm pressed to my chest though I didn’t remember picking it up. The red thread was warm, almost hot.

I set it back down, whispered my mother’s protection chant, and stared at the ceiling until dawn stretched pale fingers through the blinds. By the time Briar showed up again, I was running on caffeine and nerves.

“You look like you fought with a ghost and lost,” she said.

“Funny you should say that.”

Her eyes sharpened. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

She crossed her arms. “Selene.”

“I said nothing.”

But we both knew it was a lie.

That evening, I unlocked the drawer again. Pulled the photo out and held it in both hands. Me. Ghost. No one else. The scratches over Vex, over Reaper, over the nameless faces in the background, they weren’t random. They were violent. Deliberate.

It wasn’t just erasure. It was possession. And it terrified me more than I wanted to admit. I pressed the photo flat against the wood, shut the drawer, and whispered to myself: “It’s just fear.” But fear has teeth. And mine were already sinking in.

The city outside kept moving, brass bands, catcalls, clattering plates. Life as usual. But inside my chest, everything was shifting. Something was coming. And for the first time, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to fight it. Or if some reckless, cursed part of me wanted to see it through.

Chapter Eight

Ghost

She left the shop just before noon.

Leather jacket slung over one shoulder, hair tied up, big black sunglasses hiding most of her face. But not all of it.

Not the way her shoulders were tighter than usual.

Not the way she didn’t wave at the guy selling pralines on the corner like she always did. And not the way she checked over her shoulder twice before she even hit the curb.

Something was off. I knew her rhythm by now.

Selene had this way of moving, like the whole world was hers but she didn’t feel like taking it today. A kind of quiet power that drew people in without trying. She moved like the Quarter belonged to her, not rented, not borrowed, but claimed. People noticed without realizing they noticed. The flower-seller smiled wider. The old man sweeping his stoop straightened up a little taller. Even the pigeons seemed to clear space when she walked past.

But today, her movements were smaller.

Sharper.

Defensive.

She was spooked. And that made me cold.

I waited until she turned the corner, then eased off my perch and dropped to street level. I kept my distance, but not too much. Enough to stay invisible. Enough to respond if I had to.

She wasn’t out long. Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. Picked up a few things from the little herb stall Briar loved. Bought candles. Clove oil. A few spell jars she probably didn’t even need. I clocked her bag, not heavy, not full. She wasn’t shopping. She was distracting herself.

But when she came back?

She moved faster.