The Blood We Crave: Part Two (The Hollow Boys, #4)

by Monty Jay

“Rook, he mothered me more than my mother. Which, for a time, I needed. Alistair let me be angry, showed me a way to let out the hurt. I also needed that.” He looks up at me in the rearview mirror. “But you, you made me move. You forced me to push forward, even when I hated you for it. Thank you for caring about me more than I cared for myself.”

But she’d promised me, swore that I’d never be locked out. She would always keep me inside, no matter how badly she needed to disappear.

I was done cleaning up after everyone except Lyra. She is the exception in every capacity.

Her worries about me forgetting who I am with her are void. Not when I know that I’ll always come back to her. That the me I was always meant to become is who I am with her.

We are two halves of a broken hole. Two mangled people trying to find solace in all the darkness we’d been given. For years, I wished I’d never met her. That the night we met could be erased and forgotten.

But now, all that matters is the girl inside the closet and the woman who came out of it alive. I wish I could’ve done more to save her mother, if only so I could thank her. For creating the...

But I knew, maybe even from the moment we met each other all those years ago, I knew. DNA did not make me a killer. And it doesn’t determine who my family is.

“I just know Rosemary is so fucking pissed she missed out on Thatcher becoming a decent human being,”

“To the Styx?” I offer. “To the Styx,” they echo.

“I want you to make me bleed.”

“I want a constant reminder of who my home is.” He brushes the bridge of his nose against mine, holding himself up with his hands. “I want to look at your mark every day so that I never forget the parts of me that have always belonged to you, darling phantom.”

“The sting of this blade. I feel this when I touch you. When I’m around you, it’s like fresh cuts. Painful in a way I crave,” he mutters. “What is that one?”

“Tell me,” he urges. “What is it for you?” “Love.” I say it on an exhale. “That’s what love feels like for me. It stings, it hurts, because it’s real and you’re afraid of losing it. But it stays with you. It scars.”

He is my protector, my defender. A connection that will never leave or stray, no matter how it’s tested. It’s a love that stays with me in the quiet nights when I’m trapped in my head.

“But be careful. I’m a taken man now, and she doesn’t share well.”

That was the exact reason I had Silas keep Lyra entertained while I met with the detective. She’s possessive, and although I am more than capable of protecting myself, it never goes well for people who try coming for me.

Her dreams are mine. Her goals are mine. She is my hope.

“I wanted it to sound like mourning because a part of you died the night we met.” He presses his forehead to mine, letting me breathe him in. “Thank you for loving me with what remained.” “Thank you for letting me be your ghost. For seeing me,” I tell him. “I can’t wait to haunt you for the rest of our lives and the ones after that.”

The ghost and the boy who was winter.

“Death is trivial. He can’t keep you from me. I’ll follow you to the grave every time and find you in each life after.”