Page 20 of Ghoul Me, Maybe

SIENNA

T he wreck doesn’t want me.

That’s the first thing I feel when I hit the hull—cold, slick, unwelcoming. Like the Maiden remembers being broken and would rather drown alone than let anyone touch its bones again.

I scramble across the crumbling deck, soaked to the skin, boots slipping on algae-covered planks.

Every step echoes with the creak of rotted timber and something deeper—something alive .

The relic’s tugging me like a magnet hooked to my spine, each heartbeat leading me lower into the shattered skeleton of the ship.

I find it tucked into a crevice beneath a rusted rib of hull. Same eerie glow. Same faint hum. It pulses in my hand like it remembers me. Like it’s been waiting.

I don't say anything.

Not to it. Not to myself.

I just stuff it inside my jacket, zip up the pocket, and turn to go.

That’s when I hear it.

Voices.

Not echo. Not the wind.

People.

Boots on wood. Cloth shifting. Low murmurs, steady and practiced.

Then a flashlight beam cuts across the wreck like a blade of white fire.

I freeze, ducking low, breath caught in my throat.

Too many footsteps.

Too organized.

And then he speaks.

“Miss Vale.”

Polite. Smug. Absolutely out of place.

I rise slowly, heart pounding.

Grey stands on what’s left of the upper deck, his long coat unmoving despite the wind.

Behind him are three others, dressed in black—gear fitted tight to their bodies like second skin.

They don’t move like dockhands or hikers.

They move like soldiers. The kind who don’t wait for orders to pull triggers.

“Well, hell,” I mutter.

He smiles. “I do appreciate your efficiency. Saves me quite the search.”

“You stalking me now, or just got really lucky with your offshore murder timing?”

Grey steps closer, his boots not making a sound. “Neither. You’re predictable, Sienna. That’s what makes you so dangerous. You always try to fix things yourself.”

“Imagine that,” I say, inching toward a broken beam. “A woman trying to clean up her own mess.”

“Not just yours,” he says. “Your father’s. The Captain’s. Everyone’s.”

I grip the beam like it’s going to sprout a gun. “What do you want?”

He gestures lightly.

The man on his left moves fast.

I barely duck the baton. It hisses through the air with a sound like angry bees. I kick his knee out and shove off him, stumbling down a slope of shattered boards.

The relic hums hotter in my jacket.

Another goon—taller, broader—grabs my arm. Electricity jolts through me. Runes. Gods, it’s enhanced tech. My bones feel like they’re melting.

I scream, twist, slam my fist into his throat. He chokes, but doesn’t drop me.

“Let go?—!”

A third shape hits me from the side.

I go down hard, ribs slamming into wood, shoulder scraping metal. Pain flares white-hot. My jacket tears.

The relic slips out.

“No—!”

Grey picks it up like it’s nothing more than a paperweight.

He holds it delicately, turning it in his hand. It glows brighter in his palm.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he murmurs. “So simple. So perfectly dangerous.”

“Don’t—” I crawl forward, voice ragged. “You don’t understand ?—”

“Oh, I understand more than you think.”

I reach for it anyway.

A boot slams into my back.

Air flies out of my lungs. I choke, pain radiating down my spine.

“You’ve been very brave,” Grey says calmly. “But brave isn’t the same as smart. You should’ve taken my offer.”

“And you should’ve worn a name tag that says ‘Bond villain.’”

Another kick. This time to my side.

I scream again.

Ribs—maybe cracked. Maybe broken.

My fingers fumble for anything—wood, chain, bone—but they grab me first.

Gloved hands pin me down.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Grey says, crouching beside me. “Someone very invested in this relic wants you alive. But only just .”

I spit blood. “Tell him I said hi.”

He chuckles. “Such fire. Let’s see how long it lasts.”

He stands.

“Take it to the extraction point. She’ll come with us.”

I hear zip ties click.

Then a sharp jab to my neck.

Searing heat.

Blackness blooming.

Everything’s black.

Thick. Suffocating. Like being drowned in velvet and silence.

Then I feel it.

A ripple.

Like thunder... without sound.

Something ancient waking up.

A whisper—not in my ears, but in my bones .

And then, screaming.

Not mine.

Theirs.

The dark cracks open.

I blink through the blur—vision doubled, body limp, head pounding.

The wreck is chaos.

One of the goons is on fire— actual fire —not flames that burn, but ghostlight blue and cold as the grave. He’s screaming, rolling, slapping at his chest. It won’t go out.

Another man’s being lifted into the air— by nothing . His limbs flail, mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for breath as he slams— once, twice, again —against the broken ribs of the ship until he goes limp.

And there, in the center of it all, Elias.

Not my Elias.

Not the man who kissed me in the moonlight or held my hand like I was the only tether he had left.

This is something else .

A spectral storm.

His coat whips behind him in a wind that isn’t blowing. His eyes glow like lit coals. His face is a mask of fury, all shadow and teeth and impossible, primal rage .

He roars —and the tide answers.

The water rises , slamming into the wreck with unnatural force, sweeping two of the men clean off their feet. One disappears under the surf. The other scrambles, but Elias is already there, appearing in a blink, his hand phasing through the man’s chest.

The man convulses—and drops like a stone.

Mr. Grey stumbles back, the relic clutched tight to his chest.

“You’re not supposed to—” he gasps.

Elias lifts his head. His voice is a growl made of centuries.

“I was buried here.”

The last thug lunges. Desperate. Screaming.

Elias doesn’t dodge.

He disintegrates —splits into mist—then reforms behind him, grabs his head, and slams it sideways into a beam so hard it cracks the wood.

The wreck groans around us, like it might collapse from the sheer force of his rage.

Grey is already running.

Elias hurls himself after him—but he staggers .

Mid-air.

Like something’s pulling him.

He hits the deck hard. Too hard.

He doesn’t rise.

The relic is gone.

I crawl to him, ribs shrieking.

“Elias!”

He looks up at me.

His eyes are fading.

So is his outline.

Parts of him are already transparent—his hands, his edges. Like smoke unraveling.

“No, no, no—” I grab his coat. “Stay here. Stay with me. ”

“They took it,” he whispers. “It’s... calling back .”

My hands tremble. “Then go after it!”

“I can’t ,” he says, voice breaking. “Not without... not without you. Not without the anchor.”

Tears sting my eyes. “Then take me with you.”

He shakes his head. “You’ll drown.”

“You’re fading.”

“And you’re still breathing.”

Here we stand. In the wreckage of the world.

Blood and tide and fire behind us.

Nothing ahead.

Just the loss.

“I’m sorry,” he says, as the last of him flickers.

“No,” I whisper, clinging to him. “ Don’t apologize. Fight. ”

But there’s nothing left to fight.

And the sea takes him.