Chapter 2
1819 Words
The moment I pushed open the heavy back door, the air hit me. Thick with the sharp tang of ink, burnt coffee, and the metallic whine of tired machines.
"You come to steal more headlines, or just steal my coffee again?" a rough voice barked from somewhere behind the battered printing press.
I let the door creak shut behind me, boots scuffing across the stained concrete floor.
The old bookstore above was just for show. Down here was where the real news lived. And died.
"Might depend on how bad the coffee is today," I called back, peeling off my jacket.
Miles Thatcher emerged from the shadows, wiping ink-stained fingers on a rag that looked worse off than the press. Cigarette tucked behind one ear, sleeves rolled past his elbows, he looked every bit the war-beaten lion he was.
"Bad?" Miles snorted, stepping around a rattling press. "Kid, it's terrible. Come on, ruin your tongue."
The press gave a shuddering groan as Miles leaned over it, sleeves pushed back, cigarette tucked carelessly behind one ear. The machine hissed and clattered like a creature on its last legs, but Miles slapped it affectionately and it wheezed back to life.
"Thought you got yourself killed yesterday," he grunted without looking up. His laugh barked out, rough and short, scraping the ceiling with its cynicism.
"Sorry to disappoint," I said, grabbing a rusted stool near the battered workbench.
Miles finally looked over, his face a patchwork of wrinkles carved by too many years of bad decisions and worse consequences. His eyes were sharp though, cutting through the dust and smoke straight to the lies I hadn't even told yet.
"Keep showing up smelling like trouble, Quinn, and one day I’ll have to start charging you rent," he said.
"You'd miss me," I muttered.
He smirked. "Not as much as the damn drama you drag in."
Miles did not even glance up as I crossed the floor toward him. He knew my footsteps the way some people knew the weather, the weight of them, the stubborn edge that dragged behind every step.
"Still breathing, I see," he muttered, his fingers threading a new sheet into the battered press.
"Disappointed?" I shot back, slumping onto the stool.
"You have no idea," he said, dry as sand. His hands, rough and stained with decades of ink and broken promises, moved with a kind of muscle memory that came from fighting too long for too little.
The press wheezed as he adjusted a gear.
"One of these days, your big mouth and bigger heart are gonna get you flattened."
"You say that like it hasn't already happened," I said.
Miles grunted, finally tossing me a glance.
"One day, Quinn, you are gonna chase a ghost you cannot outrun. Try not to drag the rest of us with you."
Miles flicked the cigarette into a cracked tin tray with a sharp snap of his fingers, ash blooming like gray snow.
"Gettin' sloppy, kid," he muttered, voice rough with smoke and something heavier he would never say out loud.
I spun my notebook once on the table, keeping my voice light. "Gotta keep things interesting somehow."
"You keep it up, you are gonna keep things short instead," he said, reaching for another sheet without meeting my eyes.
I shrugged. "They did not catch me."
"Yet," Miles growled, flattening the paper with the heel of his hand. His knuckles were a map of old scars. Every movement he made seemed to fight off a memory that wanted too badly to surface.
The press behind him thumped in a tired rhythm.
The room smelled more like old fear than ink now.
He did not say he had been scared when the sweeps started tonight.
He did not have to.
I tossed him a crooked smile, the kind that used to get me out of trouble when I was still young enough to believe it would work.
"Would not be the first time," I said, swinging my boot lazily against the metal leg of the stool.
Miles gave a low grunt that could have meant anything. Agreement. Disgust. Fear.
The truth itched beneath my skin, same as the cold tonight.
My muscles were tight under the jacket. Shoulders stiff. Breath thinner than it should have been.
He saw it too. Of course he did. Miles missed nothing except the chance to pretend he did not care.
"You think jokes are gonna keep you alive?" he said finally, voice pitched low so it would not echo off the stone walls.
"No," I said, tapping my pen against the notebook in rhythm.
"But they sure make dying less boring."
His mouth twisted like he wanted to throw the tray at my head.
Miles slammed a fresh sheet onto the printing press so hard the old machine groaned in protest.
"You keep chasing ghosts long enough, Quinn," he said, voice scraping like gravel over stone, "you will forget you are even alive."
The press hissed and clattered, spitting ink onto the paper in uneven jerks.
I froze with my pen half-lifted, the sarcasm dying in my throat. Miles never raised his voice unless he was trying not to break something else inside him.
"I am still breathing, aren't I?" I said, softer than before, but it rang hollow even to me.
He wiped his hands on the filthy rag again, staring at nothing.
"Breathing ain't the same as living, kid," he muttered.
The words sat heavy between us, thicker than the smoke curling toward the cracked ceiling.
In the war we were fighting, survival was not victory.
It was just... postponement.
The press coughed and rattled back to life behind Miles, its steady groan filling the space like a heartbeat you could not trust.
I shifted my weight, gaze wandering past the cluttered workbench stacked with busted radios and half-spilled ink cans.
Pinned crooked near the edge of the wall was an old photograph, corners curled with time.
Four young faces smiled out from it, arms slung over each other's shoulders, ink-stained fingers waving proudly at the camera.
"That was before," Miles said without looking up.
"Before what?" I asked, even though I already knew.
He shrugged, tightening a bolt on the press.
"Before chasing truth got them killed. Before this city decided smiling was a crime."
The picture fluttered in the draft from the press, the faces dancing for a second like they might still be alive somewhere.
I looked away first.
Miles just kept working.
Miles reached out without thinking, his fingers brushing the photo pinned to the wall.
The paper crinkled softly under his touch, a sound barely louder than a breath.
"Chased too many shadows myself once," he said, voice low, meant for the ghosts rather than me.
"Only thing I caught was a bullet. And memories nobody fights to keep."
I stayed still, the stool creaking under my weight, not daring to break the fragile thread stretched between us.
"You survived," I said, because I had nothing better.
Miles gave a tired chuckle that sounded more like a cough.
"Survived just long enough to know survival is not living, Quinn. It is just hanging around long enough to watch everyone else fall."
The press thumped behind him, stamping ink onto a page that fewer and fewer people would ever read.
He tapped the photo once more, then let his hand fall away.
I tightened my grip around the leather-bound notebook until my knuckles strained white.
It smelled like smoke and ink, like every secret I had ever sworn to carry alone.
"You think you will be different," Miles said without looking at me, voice drifting like dust through the heavy air.
"You think you are smarter. Faster. Harder to break."
I opened my mouth, ready to throw something cocky back at him, ready to be the version of myself I needed to be.
Nothing came out.
Instead, I slid off the stool, sliding the notebook deep into my jacket pocket, shielding it like it could save me.
"You are wrong," I said finally. My voice cracked a little, but I let it stand.
Miles let out a slow exhale, one that sounded a lot like regret.
"Maybe," he muttered. "Maybe not."
Neither of us really believed it.
Not anymore.
The press groaned behind me, but I barely heard it.
My gaze drifted toward the back wall, where the yellowed clippings clung like brittle scabs to cracked plaster.
The "Missing" board.
Flyers fluttered in the stale air leaking from the broken vent. Smiling faces stared back, faded by time and forgotten by most.
I knew some of those names once.
Knew their laughs. Their dreams.
"Reyna Santos. Nico Vasquez. Hal Bennett," Miles said quietly, reading the names I had stopped daring to say aloud.
"They were better than me," I said.
"That is the lie," Miles said, his voice sharp enough to slice through the gloom.
"They were just... like you."
I closed my eyes for a breath, feeling the weight of the notebook press into my ribs, heavier than anything I could carry.
The names on the wall did not whisper anymore.
They waited.
"You do not have to be another story on that wall," Miles said, voice barely more than a breath against the clatter of the old press.
I looked back at him over my shoulder, catching the flicker of something raw behind his usual gruff mask.
A part of me wanted to listen.
Wanted to fold myself into the safe lie that survival was enough.
Instead, I gave him a crooked smirk. No teeth. No real joy.
Just the worn armor of someone who knew the price of pretending.
"Too late for that," I said, fingers brushing the inside of my jacket.
The ghost file crinkled beneath my touch, a secret stitched tight against my heart.
I shoved it deeper, feeling its weight settle between my ribs.
Miles shook his head slowly, the disappointment thick but silent.
I kept walking.
Some ghosts chose you, whether you were ready or not.
I shoved the door open with my shoulder, the night air hitting my face like a slap, cold and sharp.
Behind me, the printing press kept coughing, stubborn and alive, like Miles himself.
My boots scraped over the cracked concrete as I stepped into the alley, the city swallowing me up one shadow at a time.
"Quinn," Miles called after me, his voice low enough to wrap around my spine before the wind could tear it away.
I stopped, just for a heartbeat, the ghost file heavy against my chest.
"Just remember," he said, and this time there was no sarcasm, no bluff, no safe distance.
"Ghosts do not rise. They rot."
The door creaked shut behind me before I could answer.
The streetlights flickered overhead, coughing light into the dark like a dying breath.
I kept walking.
There was no safety left in standing still.
- Writer
