Chapter 89. I Mourned Ghosts

Rae:

The engine hums beneath us.

Low.

Steady.

Too quiet for what we’re carrying in this car.

No one speaks.

Kieran drives, his fingers clenching the wheel so tight the skin blanches. Eliza’s in the passenger seat, hugging her knees to her chest, staring out the window like the world might make more sense if she watches it pass fast enough.

I sit in the back. Right next to him.

S.

He's hunched forward, elbows on knees, hands trembling in the space between. The city rolls by outside, glass and concrete melting into fields. And still, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe loud. Doesn’t speak.

Ryan sits on the far end, pressed into the door like he knows better than to be close to anyone right now. He hasn’t said a word since we left. No smugness. No apologies.

Just silence.

The cemetery comes into view like a ghost.

Familiar.

Wrong.

It looks smaller than I remember. Paler. The trees no longer