***Dru's POV***
Louise's Silverado reeked of gasoline and cigarettes—that acrid tang of chemical menthol clinging to the upholstery like a threat—but all I could smell was Dragon's spearmint. Phantom and persistent, it clung to my collar where he'd gripped me—steady hands amid Hank's rifle tremor. My wrist throbbed where Louise had dragged me into the truck, the skin still raw under his bandage. A kindness, flayed away. Louise hummed along to the static-riddled gospel station, her fingers drumming the wheel like she hadn't just flicked her lighter into the gasoline pooling beneath Dragon's throat. The spearmint sharpened, cool and green, and my pulse thrummed like it had when he'd leaned in, his breath a whisper of wild mint and rebellion: *"Princesa, respira (Princess, breathe.)"*
"Ti bêl fi (Sweet girl)," she crooned, patting my knee. The pet name curdled, same as the milk she'd left spoiling in last summer's heat. Her wedding band bit into the switch marks Hank had left last week. "You should've known better than to trust a boy who burns."
The road blurred. Kudzu choked the pines into submission as Louise took the neighborhood curves like she was auditioning for a demolition derby. Tires screeched as she veered onto our street, clipping a curb hard enough to slam my temple against the window. Mailboxes rattled in her wake, their metal mouths gaping. A stray cat darted from under the wheels, its yowl swallowed by the engine's roar. I braced against the dash, the seatbelt locking as she fishtailed into the driveway—gravel spraying, pine sap smearing the windshield like claw marks.
Dragon's eyes still haunted the glass, black coals smoldering in the gasoline haze where Louise's lighter had arced. Burn them all, I'd prayed. But the flames only danced in his irises, never catching.
The Silverado hadn't fully stopped when Louise was already out, her door slamming hard enough to rock the chassis. "Antre! ("Inside!") Her voice was syrup and shrapnel as she wrenched open my door, her menthol scream sharpening in the humid air.
Before I could register the gravel underfoot, her nails sank into my bandaged wrist. "Now!" She dragged me toward the porch, my sneakers skidding on crushed shells—the same ones that had shredded my palms at the BP station. Her words blurred into static, muffled as if she were shouting through a wall of swamp water. *Robotic. Automatic.*
A crow pecked at Louise's azalea bush, its feathers gleaming oil-slick black. It cocked its head at me, one eye glowing faintly red, and dropped a moth-eaten playing card—the King of Spades—at my feet before vanishing.
Louise hauled me through the front door, oblivious to the crow, her grip vise-tight. The living room stank of mildew and old bourbon, the air syrupy with decay. Overhead, the bulb flickered like the Greyhound sign's dying gasp. *Birmingham: DEPARTED.* My legs moved, but I was floating outside myself, watching the girl with scraped knees and hollow eyes stumble past the rusted stove, its burners cold as Louise's laugh.
"Don't stall!" She shoved me toward the basement door, its hinges still bent from when I'd tried to barricade it at 13.
"No," I whispered, the word dissolving before it left my tongue.
The door groaned open, exhaling the basement's damp rot—mold, mothballs, and the sweet-iron stench of old blood. Louise's "workshop" loomed in the corner: a rusted tool bench cluttered with pliers, sandpaper, and coils of braided leather. The whip hung like a crucifixion relic, a handle carved from Hank's old baseball bat and its tails studded with nails she'd blessed in vinegar and vitriol to 'keep 'em septic.' *"For your attitude adjustments"*, she'd crooned last year, testing it on a stray dog. It hadn't stopped screaming until sundown.
"Don't look at me like a dead thing!" She dragged me down the stairs, the rotten boards creaking like a death toll.
The bulb buzzed to life, exposing cinder block walls tattooed with my childhood claw marks. The chains above Louise's whip swayed, though no breeze touched the basement. Rusted chains dangled like forgotten puppets. A single crow feather drifted down, its tip stained bourbon-brown.
"Choose your stance." She pushed me into the support beam, its wood stained with decades of sweat. My fingers brushed a gouge I'd clawed at age nine, the day she'd locked me down here for "mouthing off."
I braced, fingers digging into a gouge I'd carved at nine. *603 days left. 602.*
*Will I bleed through my hoodie before homeroom?*
*Will Ms. Rodriguez's desk sit empty, her card still lodged in the gymnasium gravel?*
*Will Dragon's eyes scan the parking lot for a girl who smells like spearmint and survival?*
"Ti bèl fi (Sweet girl)." The whip hissed free, its tails slithering across the cracked work bench. Louise's wedding ring glinted as she flexed her grip. "You knew this was coming."
The first lash split my shoulder blade. I choked on a scream, mortar dust grinding under my nails as Louise circled. "Hank spoiled you." The whip kissed my ribs, same spot Dragon's scar cut across his hip. "Made you think you're better than us." The crescent moon scar on my wrist itched fiercely with every rise of the whip, as if something pulled beneath my skin.
I crumpled against the beam, hands clawing the gouged wood, but my mind fled—back to Dragon's crowbar sparking against asphalt, back to spearmint and gun oil clinging to his jacket, back to the rumble of a bike that almost carried me somewhere else.
As pain began to blur the edges of my vision, a low hum echoed through the basement vents—low, rasping, and wrong, like a record played backward. A creole lullaby ("Fais do-do") tuned to the mournful howling of a coyote. Louise didn't hear it.
*Burn them all.*
The pain split me in two. One half stayed chained to the beam; the other stood in a swamp clearing, moonlight dappling the murk. The crescent on my wrist pulsed—a brand carved in another life.
Three paths branched ahead:
1. Kudzu-Choked: Dragon's bike idled in the shadows, spearmint cutting through the rot.
2. Bone-Paved: Crow skeletons crackled underfoot, their hollow eyes fixed on a distant neon cross.
3. Ashen: A figure waited at its end, Stetson tilted, cigarillo glowing.
"Choose, piti fi." A voice oozed from the trees, sweet as poisoned honey. "Left, right, or…" His cane—a femur polished to ivory—tapped the ashen path. "The fun way."
I reached for the bike.
He laughed, the sound rotting the kudzu to sludge. "Smart girl. But that path's got a toll." His gloved hand gripped my wrist, the crescent scar freezing under his touch. "You'll pay it soon."
Louise's whip yanked me back. The vision shattered, but his promise lingered, etched into the basement's mold like a grave marker.
******
***Anonymous POV***
The safehouse reeked of stale pizza and burnt circuit boards. For three months, I'd been squatting here, staring at that shitbox across the street—a dingy white ranch with shutters clinging by one screw each, their pink paint peeling like sunburned skin.
Boss said to watch it, so I watched.
Installed cameras in the oak tree out front, hacked the neighbor's Wi-Fi to piggyback their Nest feed, even rigged a parabolic mic on the roof. Still. *Nada.* Unless you counted the parade of sketchy visitors: Hank lumbering out every dawn with Louise's "World's Best Mom" mug, cops with their hats tipped low, and city officials in cheap suits reeking of bourbon and bribes.
My report was due in two hours. So far, all I had was:
*7:03 AM – Subject exits house wearing "Jesus is My Life Coach" pajamas.
7:07 AM – Subject screams at azalea bush.
7:12 AM – Hank exits, chugging from mug (Note: Mug reads "World's Best Mom," irony level: lethal).
7:42 PM – **Deputy Ray Dawkins** sneaks out the back door, adjusting his belt.*
Boss's last warning hissed in my ear: *"You'll know when you see it. And if you miss it, I'll melt your servers into scrap."*
Tires screeched.
I lunged for the binoculars. The same gray Chevy Silverado—rust gnawing its wheel wells, bumper dangling by a zip tie—careened around the corner, its suspension groaning as it rode two wheels.
*How's that landboat not flipping?*
The driver-side door flew open before the truck fully stopped, and Louise erupted like a honey-glazed volcano, waddling faster than a meth-headed roach.
"Shit, shit, shit—" I toggled the mic's gain.
She yanked open the Silverado's rear door. A girl tumbled out—stringy dark brown hair, blue eyes, hoodie three sizes too big. My gut clenched. *Where've I seen that face?*
Zooming in, I caught the girl's wrist: a faded scar shaped like a crescent moon. Her crescent scar pulsed, matching the one in Boss's photo.
**Memory flash** – Boss's office last winter, a grainy photo slapped on his desk: *"Find her. Moon-shaped burn on the right arm. Alive."*
Louise hauled the girl toward the house, screaming loud enough to peak my audio: *"I'm not done with you!"* The girl moved like a marionette with cut strings.
"Boss'll skin me if I wait." I stabbed the burner phone's speed dial.
One ring. "Report."
"It's the girl. The one from the photo. Louise just dragged her inside—looked like a damn UFC takedown. Orders?"
Silence. Then, low and lethal: "Stay sharp. And Ghostrider… keep that thermal cam on the basement."
I squinted at the monitor. The girl's heat signature flickered orange-red, but something else pulsed in the corner—a crimson blotch with wings, and behind it… a shape like a man in a hat, cold as a tombstone.
The figure turned, Stetson tilted, thermal static warping into a grin. For a heartbeat, the thermal feed glitched. He winked—a spark flaring where his eye should've been cold. The figure's gloved hand rose, a cigarillo glowing sudden and bright in the thermal feed—impossible, since the rest of him read arctic blue. He took a drag, the ember flaring crimson, and exhaled smoke that coiled into skeletal shapes.
The crow on his shoulder hopped to the desk, its thermal imprint morphing into a woman's face I'd seen in missing persons files.
*"Evenin', snoop,"* the Baron's voice crackled through my headphones—a frequency that shouldn't exist. *"Tell your boss his mama says hello."* My chair slammed backward as if shoved, and the feed died.
My coffee went cold. *He shouldn't know I'm here. He shouldn't know anything.* As the air around me filled with a spearmint aroma, the screen fizzed to static, but not before I caught the crow's wing dipping—a mocking salute.
My headphones crackled with a hummed creole lullaby ("Fais do-do") during the silent footage.
The safehouse lights flickered. Shadows dripped down the walls like tar, congealing into a top hat on my desk. A moth-eaten rose lay tucked into its band, petals crumbling to ash when I reached for it.
My monitors rebooted, each screen flooding with static—except one. The basement feed now showed the girl, her heat signature blazing white-hot, and behind her… a skeletal hand resting on her shoulder. The hand drummed a rhythm—three beats, then one.
A sacred number.
A death toll.
The crow's thermal imprint screeched in sync with the audio:
*"Time's ticking, Ghostrider."*
******