Page 87 of Ghosted

I start walking before I decide to. My body picks the direction and my head catches up somewhere between the warehouse district and her apartment, where the rain smears the streetlights and every shadow looks like something worth hitting.

I don’t go home or even wash off the blood.

I don’t fucking stop to think, because thinking is how Johnny stays alive for another five minutes.

Alice first.

Then my brother.

That’s the only order that matters.

Her building looks like shit in the rain. Second-floor walk-up. Peeling paint and narrow stairs. The kind of place that makes my skin tighten because anyone could get in if they wanted to badly enough.

I take the stairs two at a time and stop outside her door, staring at the deadbolt, the cheap frame, the gap near the floor.

One kick.

That’s all it would take.

I knock instead, harder than needed, but still a knock.

Nothing.

I knock again and force my hand open before my fist decides for me. “Alice.”

A floorboard creaks inside.

Then the lock turns.

The door opens a few inches, and she’s there in an oversized sweater, hair messy, eyeliner smudged, face pale in the hall light. She looks tired as hell and angry enough to bite, and the relief that hits me is so violent I almost hate her for it.

Her gaze drops to my hands first, then my shirt, then my face.

“You look like shit.”

“Open the door.”

“No.”

“Alice.”

“Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like it belongs to you.”

That shuts me up.

Her fingers tighten around the edge of the door. “You saw them.”

“Yeah.”

Her mouth tightens. “I hate that he showed you.”

“I don’t care about the pictures.”

She scoffs, sharp and tired. “Of course you do.”