Page 52

T he dirt clung to my fingers as I pressed another seedling into the earth, my knees sinking into soil freshly turned and waiting. I didn't want to think about how many versions of myself I'd already buried this year—Valerie's daughter, the bakery girl, the one who used to cry at sad movies. My fingers trembled as I pressed the seedling deeper, like I was trying to grow something from the bones of who I used to be.

The evening sun stretched long shadows across the garden, painting the newly formed beds in shades of amber and gold.

"These roses should go near the center," Mom said, her gardening gloves stained dark with effort.

Joslyn worked beside me, usually perfect ponytail messy beneath a bandana, dirt smudging her cheek where she'd absently touched it. "I can't believe your dad kept it secret for so long."

"It was to protect me," I said, though the words felt hollow against the reality of what I'd learned—that I was born of violence, that my existence began with death, that my father had buried these truths alongside my birth mother's body. Hands deep in dark soil, I felt closer to Valerie than I ever had before. We were planting life where there had only been secrets.

Nyla sat on the garden bench, watching us work rather than joining. Her face had hollowed since Darrell disappeared, her cheekbones too sharp against skin that had lost its warmth. Dark circles carved permanent residence beneath eyes that had seen too much. She'd grown fragile in the months since her father went on the run, since Mitchell stepped into power, since their marriage became a shield rather than a choice.

"You're lucky," Joslyn murmured softly, eyes distant. "Even your secrets loved you."

Guilt twisted in my chest. Joslyn and Nyla didn't have mothers who planted gardens and kept secrets to protect them.

"Don't be silly," Mom said, brushing dirt from her hands as she stood. "You're all my girls."

The warmth in Mom's voice made something loosen in my chest. Since taking over management at Poppy Oak's, Joslyn had become like family, and Mom had naturally extended that same care to Nyla. It wasn't forced or awkward—just the easy way Mom loved, with her whole heart, without conditions.

"I'll get more water," Mom said. "The impatiens are looking thirsty."

Mom disappeared inside, the screen door closing with a soft snap behind her. The moment she vanished, Joslyn turned to Nyla with the bluntness that came from years of friendship.

"You need to eat something," she said. "Your clothes are hanging off you."

Nyla tugged at her shirt, loose around her thin frame. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine." I set my trowel down, really looking at her. The hollows beneath her eyes had deepened, skin stretched too thin over bones that hadn't been visible before. Her wedding ring slid loosely around her finger, no longer snug where it had once fit perfectly. "You look sick."

"Hex says I'm just run down." Her voice wavered slightly. "It's been a lot, with Dad gone and Mitchell trying to hold everything together."

"Speaking of," Joslyn said, wiping her hands on her jeans, "how's nursing school going? Weren't you supposed to start clinicals soon?"

Something flashed across Nyla's face—relief at the change of subject, followed immediately by discomfort. She twisted her wedding ring, a nervous habit she'd developed since Mitchell slid it onto her finger.

"I'm dropping out," she said quietly.

"What?" Joslyn and I spoke in unison, the word sharp in the evening air.

"Nursing school. I'm quitting. Hex is teaching me everything I need to know anyway."

"But you've wanted this for years," something that was finally hers alone.

"Things change." Her words fell flat, defeated. "People change."

Mom returned with the watering can, immediately sensing the tension. She looked between us, reading the situation with the intuition of someone who'd spent years managing a household of secrets.

"Everything okay out here?" she asked, setting the can down.

"Yes," Nyla said, but the word came out too quick, too sharp.

Mom nodded slowly, not pushing. She'd learned, over the years of being married to Dad, when to press and when to let people find their own way to the truth. "Tea's ready."

We moved inside after that, the conversation shifting to safer topics as Mom set out tea and cookies. But the weight of Nyla's decision hung between us, unspoken but heavy.

Tea bag spun aimlessly in my mug, a reflection rippling back—fractured, familiar. A girl shaped by everyone else's secrets, recognizable only by what she'd lost. Joslyn's scent of vanilla and cinnamon clung to her clothes, mixing with Mom's lavender soap and Nyla's too-expensive perfume. Late evening shadows stretched across the polished floors. The emptiness felt right tonight. Safer.

But safety had always been a lie I told myself.

"You okay, Oak?" Nyla's hand landed on my wrist, her touch light but present. Her gold bangles clinked softly against the wooden table, the sound sharp in the quiet.

My smile felt like a wound. "Just tired."

Nyla didn't push. Her dark eyes—always too knowing—returned to her phone, thumbs scrolling absently, but her shoulder pressed against mine. Solid. Present.

Behind the counter, Joslyn arranged cookies, lining them in perfect rows. Her gaze flicked up, catching mine. Joslyn with her practical ponytail and flour-dusted hands, steady as bedrock. Worry etched deeper each day—like cracks spreading slowly, inevitably across a porcelain doll's face.

"It's okay to be tired," she said, voice gentle but firm. "You don't have to be strong all the time."

The words sank into me like stones in still water. Ripples of something dangerous—permission to break—threatened my carefully constructed calm. My throat squeezed shut. The walls of my chest constricted, lungs struggling for air that suddenly tasted metallic.

Nyla's phone erupted against the wooden table, rattling cups and silverware. The screen flashed "Mitchell" with each violent vibration. She grabbed it, fingers trembling as she tapped the speaker button.

"Hey—"

"Where the fuck is Oakley?" Mitchell's voice ripped through the speaker, each syllable jagged with fear. Guttural screams. Heavy thrashing. Desperate cursing.

Joslyn dropped a plate. It shattered on impact, but none of us moved.

Nyla's voice fractured. "What's happening?"

A crash thundered through the speaker, then Mitchell's breathing—like he was drowning in his own lungs. "V—" His voice cut out. Shouting. Someone wailing. Mitchell gasped raggedly through the phone, "Oakley—fuck, he's lost it. He's tearing us apart, screaming your name like you're already fucking dead."

Glass exploded. A scream. Then silence for three heartbeats.

"Mitchell!" Nyla shot upright, chair crashing backward, her face drained of what little color remained.

"Jesus, he just—" Mitchell's voice shattered. "Oakley! If you can hear me, get to Hellbound now! He's hurting everyone in the club. Thinks we hurt you. Fuck?—"

The line went dead.

"My God." Joslyn's whisper cut through the silence. "What's happening?"

The chair beneath me toppled as I lurched to my feet, heart pounding against my ribs, rattling my skeleton from the inside. "We have to go. Now."

The drive blurred—streetlights smearing into golden streaks, traffic signals bleeding into the pulse pounding in my skull. My hands trembled against my thighs, nails cutting half-moons into my palms. Every second stretched into eternity.

My throat closed around a sob. Not now. He needed me clear-headed. Needed me whole when he was shattered.

Hellbound loomed ahead. The front door hung open, yellow light spilling into the night.

My feet hit pavement before Joslyn fully stopped, my body moving on instinct. Gravel crunched beneath my shoes as I ran, Nyla and Joslyn's footsteps pounding behind me.

I pushed through the doors into the graveyard of V's sanity.

The devastation spread before me like a nightmare carved from flesh and bone. Tables overturned, their legs snapped clean. Glass glittered across hardwood like fallen teeth, each fragment catching overhead lights in fractured rainbows. The heavy oak bar had been split down the center, wood grain exposed like a ribcage torn open.

Dark pools spread across the floor in abstract patterns. Handprints sliding down walls where men had reached for mercy that never came. Bodies scattered like broken dolls, breathing but hollow, their eyes reflecting nothing but terror.

The smell hit me in waves—copper pennies and iron nails, fear, sweat and something else. Something that made my stomach lurch toward my throat. The metallic tang coated my tongue, thick enough to choke on.

The room spun violently. My vision tunneled, darkness creeping in from the edges as the copper scent overwhelmed everything. I pressed my hand to my mouth, retching, but nothing came up except the taste of metal. My knees gave out completely, sending me stumbling against the doorframe.

"Oh God," I choked out, bile burning my throat. The room tilted sickeningly, and I had to grip the splintered wood to keep from collapsing. "Oh God, oh God..."

This wasn't just violence. This was an apocalypse. The end of everything, written in flesh and bone and the wetness that painted every surface like some unholy baptism.

Club members pressed themselves against walls like shadows, afraid to draw breath loud enough to remind him they existed. Mitchell slumped by a spider-webbed window, his shirt darkening where glass had found purchase. Dad stood frozen by the ruined bar, fury and helplessness warring across his face, a bruise blooming like a black flower across his cheekbone.

And there, in the eye of this hurricane—V.

Something fundamental had shattered inside him, leaving only raw nerve endings and animal need. His chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, each breath a battle against drowning. The bat hung from his grip, warped and weeping dark stains that dripped steadily onto the floor.

But his eyes—his eyes burned with recognition so fierce it could resurrect the dead.

"V?" My voice came out strangled, barely audible over the hammering of my pulse. The copper scent grew thicker, coating my throat like oil. My stomach revolted violently, and I doubled over, dry heaving against the doorframe. Tears streamed down my face as I fought to stay upright, to stay conscious. "It's okay now. I'm h-here."

The room kept spinning. I could barely see him through the haze of nausea and terror that clouded my vision. Every breath brought more of that metallic stench, making my throat close up like I was drowning in it.

His body convulsed. Head snapping toward me with desperate, starving hunger. His pupils had devoured everything else, leaving only thin rings of molten gold around endless black. Lips peeled back from teeth that looked ready to bite or pray—I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

"Not real," he snarled, every muscle coiled to spring. To end. To silence whatever cruel joke his mind was playing. "They always wear her face. Use her voice. They dress up like angels and speak with forked tongues." His voice cracked like ice over deep water. "Not real. Can't be real. She's gone. I lost her. I always lose her."

The words hit me like physical blows, each one driving deeper into my chest. My vision blurred, the room tilting sickeningly as the smell of carnage overwhelmed my senses.

He thought I was a hallucination.

"I-It's me." I took a trembling step forward, my legs shaking so violently I nearly collapsed. The copper-thick air made my vision blur, black spots dancing at the edges. I had to stop, gripping my stomach as another wave of nausea crashed over me. "I'm h-here. I'm real."

I couldn't stop shaking. Couldn't stop the tears streaming down my face. The smell was everywhere, in my hair, on my clothes, coating the inside of my mouth until I gagged on it.

The bat lifted, hanging in the space between us like a promise of death. Dark drops fell from its surface, each one hitting the floor with a wet sound that made my skin crawl.

"Stay back."

"Oakley, don't." Dad warned, his voice tight as a wire about to snap. "He's not himself?—"

"Shut up," Mitchell commanded, eyes never leaving V. "Let her try."

I moved closer, my legs threatening to give out with each step. The glass crunched under my feet, but I could barely hear it over the roaring in my ears. My vision kept swimming, the room tilting dangerously as wave after wave of nausea rolled through me. I pressed my hand to my mouth again, fighting not to vomit.

The smell grew stronger with each step, overwhelming, until I could taste it coating my teeth. My heart hammered so hard against my ribs I thought it might burst.

Another step. My vision went white around the edges, and I swayed dangerously. Close enough to see the evidence of his rampage painted across his skin like war paint. Not drops—he was baptized in it, anointed in the holy sacrament of violence done in my name.

I couldn't breathe. The room spun faster, and I had to brace myself against nothing, my hands shaking so hard I couldn't control them. Bile rose in my throat again, bitter and burning.

My stomach lurched. I pressed my hand to my mouth, fighting the bile that surged upward. This was what love looked like when filtered through a monster's devotion. This was what happened when V believed I was gone.

V's breathing stuttered. His head tilted like a wolf catching scent, nostrils flaring as he drew me in deep. His eyes widened, recognition fighting through the haze of madness like dawn breaking through storm clouds.

"Oakley?" My name broke on his lips like a prayer he'd forgotten how to finish. Hope and terror danced in his expression—desperate to believe, terrified to trust his own senses again.

"I'm h-here." The words came out weak, breathless. Black spots danced across my vision, and I swayed on my feet. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to get away from the carnage, from the smell that was suffocating me. "I'm r-real."

My knees buckled, and I had to lock them to stay standing. The metallic scent seemed to coat my lungs, making each breath a struggle. Tears kept streaming down my face, and I couldn't stop them.

The bat trembled in his grip, metal scraping against concrete like fingernails on a gravestone. His eyes darted wildly—to Mitchell, to the shadows, back to me. Searching for the trap. For the moment reality would splinter like safety glass and leave him drowning in nightmares again.

"They hurt you." Not a question. A conviction carved into his soul with rusty knives. His voice dropped to something barely human. "Broke you while I was locked away. Made me listen to you scream."

My stomach collapsed. Whatever hell his mind had created, I'd been the victim in it. V, believing I was being destroyed while he could do nothing—the thought made me want to burn down everything that had ever dared to hurt him this way.

"N-No one hurt me." I kept my voice steady even as my soul fractured, even as the metallic taste in the air made me gag. "I'm o-okay."

"Liar!" The word exploded from him like a gunshot, rattling what glass remained. Veins bulged in his neck, his face flushing dark. The bat swung up, pointing at Mitchell like an accusation carved in steel. "He called you here. Wants you bleeding. Wants you broken. Can't let them. Won't let them touch what's mine."

"V, l-look at me." I forced myself to take the final step, though my legs were shaking so hard I nearly fell. The bat's wooden tip kissed my chest, right over my heart, and the copper scent rising from its surface made me gag violently. My vision swam, darkness creeping in. "P-Put it down."

I was going to pass out. I could feel it coming—the way the room tilted, the way my hearing went muffled, the way my knees wanted to give out completely. I gripped my stomach, doubled over as another wave of nausea hit me.

He moved around me in a slow circle, each step deliberate, predatory. But not hunting—mourning. The bat scraped against the floor as he walked, leaving dark streaks that made my stomach heave. He stopped inches behind me, and I felt his breath against my neck as he inhaled deeply, shuddering.

"You even smell like her," he whispered, voice cracking. "They're getting better at this. Better at wearing her skin."

He completed the circle, standing before me again. His free hand rose, hovering near my face without touching. "Prove it's you," he growled, voice scraped raw. "Everyone lies. Everyone wears her face like a mask. You smell like her. Sound like her. Feel like her." His face twisted in agony. "But they always do. Right up until they disappear."

The words flayed me open. How long had he been lost in this maze of his own making? How many times had hope been used as a weapon against him?

I reached for his free hand with fingers that wouldn't stop shaking, my whole body trembling violently. My stomach lurched as I touched the wetness coating his knuckles—split and bleeding, evidence of what he'd done. The texture made me retch again, bile burning my throat. I slowly uncurled his fist, fighting waves of nausea so strong I could barely see. His palm was a map of destruction: cuts from gripping metal too tight, nails bitten down to nothing.

The smell rose between us, thick and choking. Black spots danced across my vision, and I swayed dangerously.

"You're h-hurting yourself," I whispered, my voice shaking. "You're b-bleeding."

"Don't. Don't touch me.” His hand convulsed in mine, trying to pull away. “I'm covered in them. In what I did. You'll get dirty."

The truth of it hit me like a physical blow—he was covered in evidence of slaughter. The metallic scent clung to him, rose from his skin in waves that made my head spin. But I couldn't let go. Wouldn't.

"I'm a-already dirty." I brought his stained hand to my face with trembling fingers, nearly collapsing as the metallic scent hit me full force. I pressed his palm against my cheek despite every cell in my body screaming at me to pull away, to run, to get away from the evidence of slaughter. His warmth smeared against my skin, and I tasted copper on my lips, making me gag. "See? I'm n-not afraid of who you are."

But I was afraid. Terrified. The room kept spinning, and I could barely stay upright.

I pressed my other palm against his chest where his heart slammed against his ribs like something caged and desperate. His skin burned through the fabric, fever-hot with devotion and madness.

I guided his trembling hand to my throat, pressed his fingers—slick with evidence of what he'd done—against the pulse that jumped beneath my skin. "Feel how alive you've kept me."

His breath hitched, but doubt still lived behind his eyes like shadows in an empty house. His hands shook like they were holding ghosts, touching smoke, grasping at dreams that had disappointed him too many times before.

So I reached for his sleeve with hands that wouldn't stop trembling.

He flinched as I pushed the sleeve up his forearm, but he didn't stop me. Scar tissue warped across muscle.My fingers found the names etched into his skin.

Summer. Oakley.

I traced mine first. Letting him feel every letter, every curve, every mark he'd made to anchor himself to something real when reality became quicksand beneath his feet.

"Y-You did this for me," I whispered, my voice cracking like ice over deep water. "You carved me into yourself so even if your mind forgot, your body would remember."

His eyes filled—not with tears, but with something deeper. Recognition. Truth. The slow, terrible dawning of hope. A breath escaped him that sounded like a soul returning from the dead.

"You're real," he choked, and the sound of it shattered every wall I'd ever built around my heart. "You're real."

The bat clattered to the floor with a wet sound that made me flinch.

His knees buckled, and he collapsed hard. His forehead pressed against my stomach as his shoulders began to shake.

"I can't tell what's real anymore," he gasped into my shirt. "In my head, you're always dying. Always screaming. And I can't save you. I can never save you."

I sank down to meet him, my legs finally giving out completely. I collapsed onto glass that bit through my jeans, my hands finding his face despite the metallic scent that rose from his skin and made my vision blur. I was barely conscious, fighting to stay present as waves of nausea and terror crashed over me. My whole body shook as I tilted his head up until he had no choice but to see me.

"Tell me w-what you see," I whispered, my voice shaking.

"You." His voice barely existed. "I just want to see you."

"I'm n-not leaving." I moved closer, until there was no space between us, until the copper scent overwhelmed everything but the need to anchor him to reality. "Feel my h-heart beating. Feel how warm I am. Ghosts don't have heartbeats, V."

His hands came up slowly, trembling as they framed my face with palms still wet from destruction. His thumbs traced my cheekbones like he was memorizing scripture.

"S-Say my name," I whispered. "Say it like you mean it."

"Oakley." The word fell from his lips like a prayer. Like coming home. Like the first breath after drowning.

For long moments, we stayed like that. Kneeling on broken glass, foreheads pressed together, breathing the same air thick with the scent of what he'd done. His hands mapped my face with desperate reverence, fingertips tracing the curve of my jaw, the slope of my nose, the arch of my eyebrows. Learning me. Believing in me.

"Tell me what you need," I whispered against his forehead, fighting the nausea that rolled through me in waves. "Tell me what will make this stop."

"I need..." His voice cracked like a boy's. "I need you to stay real. I need you to not disappear when I blink. I need—" His fingers dug into my shirt with desperate force. "I need you to forgive me for what I am."

"There's nothing to forgive." But even as I said it, my stomach churned at the evidence surrounding us, at what devotion looked like when filtered through a monster's love.

He pulled back slightly, enough to meet my eyes. "I killed them because I thought they hurt you. I destroyed everything because my mind told me you were gone." His confession poured out like water from a broken dam.

The weight of it crushed into my chest. He'd done this—all of this carnage, this slaughter—because he thought I was in danger. The metallic scent seemed to grow stronger, coating my throat until I could barely breathe.

"You're n-not evil." I pressed my lips to his temple, tasting salt and copper and something darker. "You're just...d-devoted."

"Don't leave me alone with this," he whispered, and it wasn't a request. It was a plea. A desperate, broken thing that came from the deepest part of his soul. "I can't survive losing you again."

Slowly, carefully, he reached for me. His arms came around me like he was afraid I might shatter, might prove to be nothing more than wishful thinking. When I didn't disappear, when I remained solid and warm in his embrace, despite the scent of destruction that clung to him, something shifted in his posture.

His grip tightened. Arms crushing me against him with desperate force, pulling me so close my ribs protested. His massive frame unyielding as stone, his body trembling with the effort of holding on to something real. His fingers tangled in my hair, cradling my skull with devastating gentleness that contrasted with the violent force of his embrace.

Then his grip changed. Fingers curling into fists around the strands, pulling so tight I gasped. Heat bloomed across my scalp, sharp and sudden, roots straining against skin. But I didn't pull away. Couldn't. His grip was possession, desperation, terror—physical proof that I couldn't leave, wouldn't leave, that he would tear himself apart before he let me disappear again.

"Found you," he whispered against my pulse, over and over like he was carving it into my skin with breath alone. "Found you, found you, found you." The words tumbled out in a broken litany, each word more desperate than the last.

A sound emerged from deep in his chest—not a growl, something more broken. More human. His hands moved over my back, my hair, my face, as if verifying I wasn't an illusion about to dissolve. Each touch left the scent of copper, the evidence of what he'd done, but I couldn't pull away. I wouldn't.

His entire body shook against mine, face buried against my neck, inhaling deeply. He breathed me in like a drowning man finally breaking the surface, each ragged inhale filling his lungs with proof that I was real.

"You're here," he repeated, rocking me in his arms with desperate force. "You're safe."

Minutes passed. Or hours. Time meant nothing in this space we'd carved from destruction. Eventually, his breathing steadied. His grip loosened just enough that I could pull back to look at him, though the metallic scent still clung to everything, made my stomach roll with each breath.

"V," I murmured, tracing the line of his jaw with trembling fingers slick with evidence of what he'd done. "Look at me."

Slowly, he lifted his face. His eyes were wild, pupils blown wide. But they saw me. Really saw me. Recognition dawning like a terrible sun—beautiful and deadly and inevitable.

Around us, Hellbound lay in ruins—testament to what happened when V's control slipped. All the club members and Nyla and Joslyn watched us, their faces pale with shock and horror at what they'd witnessed.

His gaze shifted past me, taking in the destruction he'd wrought. Club members pressed against walls, some slumped and bleeding, all watching him with a mixture of fear and wariness. Mitchell clutched his shoulder where glass had found its mark. Dad's face bore fresh bruises. The devastation spread like a crimson painting across every surface.

The silence stretched for about thirty seconds before Chet broke it with his signature timing.

"Well, that was fuckin' therapeutic," he drawled.

Tyrant shifted against the wall, wincing as he pressed a hand to his ribs. "Speak for yourself. I feel like I got hit by a goddamn truck. A psychotic truck with serious issues."

Knight snorted, wiping his split lip with the back of his hand. "You're all pussies. I've taken worse beatings from Faith when she's pissed about rent."

"That's because you like it when she hurts you," Husk pointed out, his voice muffled as he held a torn shirt to his nose. "You're into that kinky shit."

“Speaking of happy places,” Chet raised his fist in the air. "Here's to V finding his happy place. May we never be in the room when he loses his again."

"Amen to that," Mitchell agreed.

Tyrant grinned despite his swollen lip. "What, and miss the show?"

Joslyn laughed as Sarge pulled her into his good arm, blood dripping steadily down the other. “You need fuckin’ help.”

"Help?" Tyrant laughed. "We’re each other's support group."

"A support group that beats the shit out of each other," Mitchell grumbled as Nyla poked a cut making him hiss. “The fuck was that for, pretty girl?”

Their arguing was drowned out as I gathered him closer. His head rested heavy against me, eyes open, watching with that unblinking focus that never let me look away. His heartbeat steadied against mine—matching my rhythm.

My fingers traced the sharp line of his jaw, the arch of his cheekbone, even as my stomach churned at what surrounded us. Our foreheads pressed together, eyes closed, breathing in air thick with the scent of what devotion looked like when it went mad.

They tell you monsters hide in closets. They never tell you that sometimes, when the monster kneels before you with its heart in its hands and the evidence of slaughter coating its skin, you become the darkness too.

And if loving him meant I became the monster too?

Then so be it.

He was worth the ruin.