Chapter 44: Show Me Your Ghosts

Morning came, as it always does, without a single goddamn care for the wreckage of the night before. Sunlight, the color of cheap whiskey, sliced through a crack in the wall of the busted-up shed we’d holed up in, illuminating a universe of dancing dust motes.

The air was still, but it wasn't peaceful. It was the kind of quiet that comes after a scream, the kind that feels like it's holding its breath, waiting for the next bad thing. A new chill had settled between us, and it had nothing to do with the desert night. It was the chill of things left unsaid. Things that were now sitting between us, big and ugly and impossible to ignore.

I watched her stare out at the bruised-purple line of the horizon. She was Maddie again. Mostly. But I couldn't unsee the other thing. The Dark Rose was there, a shadow under the skin. And I knew, with the kind of certainty that settles deep in your bones, that if we were going to survive what was coming, we couldn't have any more shadows. Not between us.

"The Mongols are fertilizer," I said, my voice a gravelly ruin. "But the rot’s still in the ground. Finch. Chiron. All the other boogeymen. They ain't goin' nowhere."

I pushed myself up, my ribs screaming a hot protest. I grabbed her hand. It felt small and warm, and for a second, it was hard to believe it was the same hand that had held that bloody pipe. "I saw you last night," I said, my voice low. "All of you. And I'm not running. But I have to know."

I squeezed her hand, maybe a little too hard. "So tell me. Everything. No more holding back. Not the reporter, not the woman trying to protect me. I want the Dark Rose. I want the whole goddamn story. Your father. The training. All the ghosts you've got locked in the attic. Because if we're building something here, it has to be built on solid ground. And our ground is soaked in blood. We can't pretend it ain't."

She turned from the window, and her eyes met mine. I saw a flicker of the cornered animal in them, the one that might bite, but it was followed by a weary resignation. She knew I was right. You can only run from your own history for so long before you trip over its gravestone.

"And you?" she asked, her voice a quiet challenge. "Your wife, Jack. Sarah. The real story. Not the one you tell yourself. The mafia. The Dark Kings. All the things that keep you staring at the ceiling at three in the morning." She leaned in, her gaze pinning me to the wall. "I need to know your ghosts, too. Every last one. You want to see my darkness? Fine. But you've got to show me yours."

We just stared at each other. It wasn't a promise of healing. It wasn't a tender moment. It was a pact. A deal made in blood and desperation. Mutually assured destruction, I thought. Or maybe, just maybe, mutually assured survival.

She nodded, a slow, deliberate motion. I nodded back.

The sun kept climbing, oblivious. And in the dusty silence of that forgotten shed, we got ready to open up the tombs and let all the bodies out. One by one.