It would be a cruel thing to watch her die. To watch the light fade from those crystal blue eyes after she’d spent so long teaching me what it meant to truly live.
“You’re taking me so well, Little Ghost,” I murmur, our breathing growing rampant as we drift closer and closer to the edge of something I’ve never known, suspended in the space between the certainty of us. The love that we are making from the ruins of everything that tried to keep us apart. She’s the closest thing to holy these blood-stained hands will ever know. And I find myself mourning the man I might have been had I met her before the world taught me to worship death. I was always meant to worship her.
I don’t know if that’s faith. I don’t know if it’s madness.
But I know that it’s true.
Her forearms wrap around my neck as though they’d always belonged there, her eyes searching my face for some sort of truth. Beyond the farthest reaches of death itself, I’d still open my arms if it meant she would find her way back to me.
If every road in this life was destined to lead somewhere, perhaps they were always meant to lead here.
Could it be that simple?
Home has always been a sacred notion for me. Growing up without one will do that to you. But to discover it was never a place at all… but a person waiting patiently for you to find them, that almost feels too brutal to believe.
Her heart beats frantically against my chest while the rest of the world burns around us. If this is all I’m given of her, then let the flames have everything else. Oceans could swallow the earth whole, and I’d still be here, listening to the only heartbeat that has ever truly mattered to me. I’d still be here. Lost in this moment forevermore because I can’t stand the truth that waits beyond it.
“I’m yours, Raven. Yours to take. Yours for always.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
RAVEN
The old copper pipe groans beneath the weight of the wrench in my hand before finally giving way with a satisfying crack. About fucking time. I wipe the back of my wrist across my forehead before crouching beside the shallow trench I’d dug earlier, following the line running from the cemetery’s ancient water main toward the side of the house. The earth is still covered in a layer of snow, melting away in places, softening the frozen ground just enough to make the work a little easier. Most men would have hired someone to do this, but there’s a lot of incriminating shit that can be found here and I don’t like visitors.
By spring, if we’re lucky enough to make it that far, there will be running water out here. Enough for grass to grow between the headstones. Wildflowers if she insists. Vegetables if she can convince me they’re worth the effort. She’d already spent two evenings wandering the edge of the clearing, pointing at patches of frozen ground with an eagerness I’ve never had.
“Foxgloves,” she’d said, and I didn’t even know what the hell they were.
She’d smiled to herself before gesturing toward the cemetery gates, because apparently, they’re in need of an upgrade. She tried to convince me to let her do these things herself, but I dismissed that idea immediately.
So here I am.
Installing a tap.
The sort of ordinary task I’d never have bothered with if it wasn’t for her.
Strange.
Two weeks ago, this place was nothing more than somewhere I retreated to between jobs. Four walls standing in the middle of a forgotten forest. A place to wash the blood from my hands before replacing it with someone else’s the following day. Now, I’m searching for places where my little ghost can plant flowers.
I never noticed how much sunlight reached the eastern side of the cemetery until she pointed it out. Never cared which trees stole the warmth from the earth or where the snow melted first. All I cared about was how deep I could bury a body before I started to run out of room. I don’t hear her footsteps over the sound of the wrench. I simply feel her. A quiet warmth settled somewhere behind me.
“You missed one.”
I glance over my shoulder. She’s standing on the porch, sleeves swallowing her hands, a mug balanced carefully between both palms. My jumper hangs from her frame almost to her knees, her hair caught up in a loose braid that already looks as though it’s trying to escape.
“I missed what?”
She nods toward the toolbox sitting three feet to my left.
“The spanner.”
“I don’t need a spanner.”
“I know. Just making sure you knew what you were doing,” she says, laughing as she walks down to where I am.
“If you’re going to stand there criticizing my work, you can at least make yourself useful,” I say jokingly, smiling over my shoulder before looking back to the pipe in my hands.
