Page 19 of Ghoul Me, Maybe

ELIAS

I start pulling away the next morning.

Not because I want to.

Because I have to.

The letter changed everything. Jonas's final confession cracked something open inside me—something ugly and sharp and unrelenting. I’d spent decades thinking he abandoned me in that shipwreck like I was some cursed footnote in his adventure log.

But he didn’t. He protected me. At the cost of his life, his reputation, and the truth he owed his daughter.

And now I’m the thing dragging her through hell.

Sienna.

Too bright and stubborn. Too alive to be tethered to a ghost with a fading pulse and a shadow stitched out of fae experiments.

She deserves freedom —not me.

So I stop showing up when she calls.

I disappear for hours, sometimes a full night.

When she wakes up screaming, I’m not there.

When Mira catches my arm and hisses “What the hell are you doing?”, I don’t answer.

Because I already know.

I’m doing the only thing I can do to protect her.

I’m leaving before I kill her.

She finds me two nights later.

Down by the edge of the cliffs where the tide smashes itself stupid and the wind screams like it’s mourning something ancient. I don’t hear her until her boots crunch against the gravel behind me.

“Don’t you dare ignore me,” she snaps.

I keep my eyes on the waves. “Go home, Sienna.”

She steps in front of me, arms folded, hair whipping around her face like a storm goddess summoned just to piss me off.

“No,” she says. “Not until you say it.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Say what?”

“Why you’re cutting me out. Why you’re pulling this brooding ‘it’s for your own good’ cliché like it’s not the exact crap I’d torch you for.”

“You don’t need me,” I say, voice low. “You never did.”

“Bullshit.”

I flinch. She never swears unless she’s ready to draw blood.

“I needed you when the vault tried to drown me. I needed you when Grey tried to buy me off. I needed you when I found out my dad lied about every damn part of my life. And you were there. So don’t you dare stand here now, all self-righteous martyr and pretend like this is about me. ”

“It is about you,” I snap. “Every minute I’m near you, you get pulled deeper. First the dreams. Then the relic. Now your car explodes and a man like Grey shows up in town? You think that’s coincidence?”

“YES,” she shouts. “I think life is messy and dangerous and you are not the damn center of it.”

I take a step forward, eyes burning.

“You think I want this?” I hiss. “You think it’s easy watching you fall apart because I can’t let go?”

“Then don’t!” she yells.

Silence falls.

Her chest heaves. Her eyes are rimmed red, but she hasn’t cried. Not yet. That’s the worst part.

“I chose you,” she says, voice cracking. “You don’t get to un-choose me like I’m some accessory you’re trying to return.”

I shake my head. “I’m not safe, Sienna.”

“You never were. And that’s why I love you.”

The words land like a knife.

I stagger back like they hit bone.

She exhales sharply, like she wasn’t supposed to say it out loud.

“Well,” she mutters. “There it is.”

“Sienna—”

“No,” she cuts me off. “Don’t say anything unless it’s real. Unless it’s you. Not the part of you trying to play noble. Not the ghost. You. ”

I don’t move.

I want to.

Gods, I ache to reach for her. To say something—anything—that undoes the pain I just painted all over her face. But I don’t.

Because I’m a coward.

And she deserves someone braver.

She nods once. Just once. Then turns and walks away.

She doesn’t look back.

And I let her go.

Because that’s what I am .

A man already dead.

I don’t go home.

There’s nothing left in that crumbling cottage but salt-stained regrets and half-remembered dreams that belong to someone else.

So I walk.

Down the cliffs. Through the fog. Past the old stones Jonas once marked with runes that hum low when I get too close. The sea’s restless tonight. And something’s wrong.

Off.

It’s not just the wind.

It’s the absence of something.

Of her.

It hits me all at once—like I’ve swallowed a lead anchor.

She’s gone.

I spin on my heel and move. Fast. Feet hitting the sand so hard they leave dents. I burst into Mira’s shop, ignoring the startled crash of a jar somewhere behind the counter.

“She’s not answering,” Mira says before I even open my mouth. Her eyes are sharp. Afraid. “She left an hour ago. Said she was done waiting.”

“Where?”

“Where do you think? ”

I don’t say another word.

I turn and run.

The shoreline’s half-shrouded by mist by the time I get there.

Waves slam against the jagged teeth of the cove like they’re trying to crack the world open. The moon’s playing coy—ducking behind clouds like it doesn’t want to see what’s about to happen.

And there she is.

Wading chest-deep into the surf.

Wreckage breaking the waterline behind her like bones too stubborn to sink.

“ Sienna! ” I shout.

She doesn’t turn.

Of course she doesn’t.

I run, stumbling through foam and kelp until the tide’s up to my waist and I can grab her arm.

She jerks around, eyes blazing. “ Let me go. ”

“No.”

“I have to do this, Elias. He died for this. I’m not letting it end with another person I love being lost because I waited too long.”

“I’m not Jonas,” I growl.

“No,” she snaps. “You’re worse. Because you could’ve stayed. And you didn’t. ”

I reel back like she hit me.

She exhales, trembling. “I’m not mad at you for being cursed. I’m mad you think that’s all you are.”

I don’t answer.

Because she’s right.

She steps back, closer to the wreck, water churning around her like it knows what’s coming.

“This relic,” she says, voice cracking, “It’s a memory. A prison. And I’m going to end it. If that means binding myself to it, fine. If it means tearing it out of the sea with blood and fire—then so be it. ”

“You’ll die,” I whisper.

She shrugs. “Then I die on my terms.”

My hand shakes.

“I can’t lose you.”

“You already did.”

And she dives.

One heartbeat.

Two.

The surface closes like a secret.

And I go after her, because I’d rather be damned a hundred times over than let her be alone when the wreck takes its final breath.