Ghosts in the Room
345 Words
The clubhouse shook with noise — boots pounding, voices raised, the air thick with smoke and fury. Raven's pulse thundered in her ears, the ropes at her wrists biting deep as she struggled to keep her composure.
"Enough!" Jaxon roared again, his broad shoulders squaring as he stood between her and the mob. His chest heaved, green eyes sharp with defiance. For one split second, the room actually obeyed.
Then the doors slammed open.
Every voice died. Silence spread like a blade sliding across throats.
Raven froze. The sound of heavy boots echoed in the entranceway, each step carrying a weight she recognized in her bones. Her stomach dropped, bile rising in her throat.
And then she heard it. That voice.
"What's this mess?" the man demanded, his tone deep, gruff, authoritative — the voice of someone used to being obeyed without question.
The world spun. Raven's vision blurred, not from the hit she'd taken earlier, but from the memory.
She was little again, pressed into the back of a closet, her mother's muffled sobs leaking through the door. A man's voice filling the house with violence. Then the c***k of a gunshot. Her mother's scream cut short. The thud of her body hitting the floor. And that voice, laughing, cold, triumphant.
Raven's knees buckled. The room tilted. Her chest collapsed under the weight of it all.
It's him. The man who killed her. He's here.
Her lips trembled as she whispered, "No... no, it can't be..."
The man stepped into the light, his presence commanding the entire room. Broad, scarred, the unmistakable aura of a man who led through fear and loyalty alike.
Jaxon's voice cracked through the silence. "Dad."
The word shattered her.
Raven's stomach twisted violently, bile burning her throat. Dad. Dad. The bot she had trusted, who had held her secrets, who she had begun to love... was the son of her mother's murderer.
The ropes around her wrists deeper as her body trembled, but no physical pain compared to the jagged pieces tearing through her heart.
And Raven... couldn't breathe.
- Writer
