Page 17 of Ghoul Me, Maybe

SIENNA

I don’t go into town planning to get threatened by a guy who looks like he moonlights as a Bond villain. I just want a goddamn coffee and maybe five blessed minutes where nobody’s talking about ghosts, curses, or my dead dad.

No dice.

The bookstore smells like old pages, burnt vanilla, and existential dread. Mira calls it “literary musk.” I call it “trauma with a hardcover.” But the coffee’s good, and I need to pretend my life isn’t unraveling one ley line at a time.

I’m mid-sip when I feel it.

Not a chill. Not a jolt. Just a weird... pause . Like the air’s holding its breath.

Then he speaks.

“Sienna Vale.”

The voice is smooth. British, probably. Rich enough to have been pressed in a velvet box and handed out with caviar.

I turn.

And the man standing there does not belong in Lowtide Bluffs.

Slick black coat. Tailored. Shoes like mirrors. Hair neat, dark, expensive. Skin pale enough to suggest he doesn’t go outside unless it’s into a black car with tinted windows and sinister motives.

He’s got cheekbones you could use as weapons and a presence like a quiet threat.

“You’ve got the wrong girl,” I say, keeping my tone light.

He smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “I think we both know that’s not true.”

My stomach knots.

I set the coffee down carefully, like I might need both hands free.

“Alright,” I say. “Let’s pretend I am her. What do you want?”

“To offer you a choice,” he says, stepping closer, casual as sin. “You’ve inherited something very dangerous, Ms. Vale. And you’re in far over your head.”

I snort. “You and everyone else.”

He tilts his head, watching me like I’m a puzzle he’s already solved.

“Your father was a difficult man. Brilliant, certainly. Reckless. But he did manage to uncover something remarkable before his... unfortunate end.”

“You knew Jonas?”

“I knew of him. As most in our circle did. He had a talent for uncovering things better left buried.”

I cross my arms. “You going somewhere with this, or are we just casually dragging my dad’s ghost through the fiction section?”

He glances around the store—empty, save for the barista restocking teas and a tourist flipping through a murder mystery.

Then he says it.

“The relic is not what you think it is.”

I go cold.

“What do I think it is?” I ask carefully.

“A tether. A curse. A legend. But it’s more than that. It’s a key, yes—but not just to a vault. To a prison. To a force far older than your father understood.”

“Right,” I mutter. “And you’re here to help?”

“I’m here to warn you. Walk away now. Let it go. The dead deserve rest—and the living deserve peace.”

I laugh. Sharp. Bitter. “You think peace is on the table for me? After what I’ve seen?”

“I think wealth could be.”

He pulls a slim card from his coat—matte black, no name, just a number.

“I can make you disappear. Give you enough to start over somewhere far from here. No strings.”

“And in exchange?”

“Abandon the search. Leave the relic where it lies. Let us clean up your father’s mess.”

I stare at the card. Then at him.

And then I do something deeply unwise.

I smile.

“Tell you what. You take your creepy offer, fold it into a paper crane, and shove it where the ley lines don’t shine.”

His smile fades.

“You’ll regret that.”

“No,” I say, grabbing my coffee. “But you might.”

I leave the card on the table and walk out like I’m not shaking. Like I didn’t just make a choice that’ll echo through every cursed heartbeat left in this town.

The fog outside swallows me up.

And I swear—for just a second—I hear him say,

“Tick, tock, Ms. Vale.”

The next day, the universe cashes in on that threat.

It starts like any other apocalypse.

With a pigeon and an awkward breakfast burrito.

I’m unwrapping it on the hood of my beat-up Civic, parked by the cliffs, when something pops . Not loud. Not a bang. Just a subtle click —like a car door lock from fifty feet away.

Then the engine compartment booms .

I don’t scream.

I move .

Fast.

I hit the gravel just as the hood explodes upward in a geyser of smoke and heat and shrapnel. Glass rains down like angry confetti. My coffee goes flying. The burrito is toast.

My car is gone .

Mira runs out of the shop across the street, face pale, apron flapping. Elias is behind her, already looking for me like he knew.

I sit up, coughing, ears ringing.

“Okay,” I croak. “So that’s a no on the extended warranty.”

Elias drops to his knees beside me. “You’re bleeding.”

“Wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t.”

His hands shake as he presses a cloth to my temple. “What happened?”

“I think... I just got a second opinion on that ‘walk away’ offer.”

Mira’s eyes go wide. “The Collector?”

“Goes by Mr. Grey now,” I mutter. “Real upgrade.”

Elias’s jaw flexes. His voice drops into something low and lethal. “He touched you?”

“No,” I say. “But he found me. And now my car’s toast. So yeah—I think the bastard just started his game.”

Elias lifts me gently.

“Then we finish it.”

Later, after the fire’s out and the tow truck’s dragged what’s left of my Civic into a scrapyard-shaped afterlife, we sit behind Mira’s shop on a warped wooden bench. The air still smells like scorched rubber and burnt coffee.

Elias hasn’t spoken in ten minutes.

Which, for him, is a red flag wrapped in ominous silence.

“You gonna brood me into safety, or what?” I ask, voice dry.

He doesn’t smile. Not even a twitch.

Instead, he looks at me like I’m glass and the wind’s getting ideas.

“I should’ve been faster,” he mutters.

I tilt my head. “You weren’t even there .”

“I felt it,” he says. “The second it happened. Like the tide pulled wrong.”

I rest my arms on my knees, still jittery from the explosion. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It’s my job to protect you.”

“No, it’s not,” I snap. “I didn’t sign you up for?—”

“Yes, you did.” He finally turns to me, eyes storm-dark. “When you refused to walk away. When you stood between me and Mira. When you let me kiss you like I was something real.”

I freeze.

Not because he’s wrong.

Because he’s too right.

He exhales like the weight of the world is catching up with him.

“I’m not your hero,” he says. “Hell, I’m barely human. But I swear to every god and ghost that still listens—I’ll keep you safe. Whatever it takes. Even if it kills me again.”

My throat tightens.

“Don’t say that.”

“You need to hear it,” he growls. “Because this isn’t going to end clean. Not with relics and murderers and half the town’s magic waking up. But I’ll walk through every curse, every shadow, every damn piece of your father’s broken past—just to make sure you see the end of it.”

The wind gusts. My hair whips across my face.

And I feel it.

The bond between us. Not the relic. Not the curse.

Him.

“Elias,” I whisper.

He leans in, slow and sure, until our foreheads touch.

“I won’t lose you,” he murmurs. “Not to him. Not to fate. Not to some haunted piece of gold.”

I close my eyes.

I believe him.