Chapter 16: Old Bones and Buried Warnings
1369 Words
Justin’s POV
The house had gone still again.
Too still.
Justin sat awake, back pressed to the bedroom wall, listening. Waiya was asleep now, finally—if you could even call it that. She twitched every so often, like her dreams were chasing her instead of the other way around. But her breathing was steady, and that was enough to keep him from losing it.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the way the house had moved. The way it had protected her.
He’d seen wards before. Hood magic. Rootwork. Protection circles etched under floorboards and old prayers carved into bone and brick. But this house? It had soul.
And it had chosen Waiya.
That shook him more than he wanted to admit.
The scar she carried… that wasn’t just trauma. That was a key. And someone—or something—was trying to use it to open the wrong kind of door.
He ran a hand over his head, mind racing.
He needed answers. Reinforcements. Something.
And then—
Knock knock knock.
Three slow taps. Not the front door. The back.
Justin tensed.
Waiya didn’t stir.
He stood carefully, grabbing the blade tucked in the nightstand—a short, curved knife with sigils carved into the handle. The kind you didn’t just carry. The kind you had to earn.
Barefoot and quiet, he made his way through the hall, down the stairs, through the dark kitchen. Every instinct told him this was wrong. The timing. The feeling in the air.
But he opened the back door anyway.
And nearly dropped the knife.
“…Monica?”
The woman standing there looked like a ghost of his past—same slick locs tucked under a scarf, same too-sharp cheekbones, same no-bullshit stare. But there was something else now. A hollowness in her face. Her eyes looked like they’d seen too much, too fast.
“You gonna let me in?” she asked, glancing past him.
Justin stepped aside, jaw tight. “What are you doing here? I ain’t seen you in—”
“Three years.” She brushed past him like she still owned the room. “Not since New Orleans.”
“Yeah. Since you left me to deal with that whole crossroads mess on my own.”
She stopped near the sink and turned. “And you lived, didn’t you?”
He exhaled slow. “Barely.”
They stared at each other in thick silence until she finally dropped the act.
“I didn’t come to fight,” she said, reaching into her coat. “I came to warn you.”
Justin raised an eyebrow.
She pulled something out and placed it on the counter. A bundle—wrapped in red cloth, tied with a piece of sinew, still damp.
It pulsed.
Low and wrong.
“What the hell is that?”
“A bone charm,” Monica said. “I found it outside my grandmother’s grave two nights ago. It’s marked with your girl’s bloodline. Somebody’s trying to curse her from the root.”
Justin stepped closer. The charm reeked of grave dirt and rust. “How’d you even know where I was?”
“Didn’t,” Monica said. “But the charm did. It led me here.”
He swallowed hard. “So it’s tracking her.”
“Not her. Her bloodline. Someone wants to cut the thread that ties her people to the old ways.”
Justin’s stomach twisted. “Donquavious.”
Monica nodded. “He’s not doing this alone anymore. Whatever he called up? It’s got memory. It’s digging through bones and names and secrets older than either of us.”
Justin picked up the charm with two fingers, holding it away from his body. “Can we destroy it?”
“No,” she said flatly. “Not yet. Not until you use it to trace the source.”
He stared at her. “You’re serious.”
“I am. And I’m staying until it’s done.” She looked upstairs, toward the room where Waiya slept. “You’re in deep with her, huh?”
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to.
Monica’s expression softened for the first time all night. “Then protect her. Because what’s coming next? Ain’t nobody walking away clean.”
Justin clenched his jaw and looked down at the charm again.
It was pulsing faster now.
Like a countdown.
Waiya’s P.O.V
The cold hit her first.
Not in the room—but in her chest, like something tugged on a string woven through her ribs.
Waiya’s eyes snapped open.
She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, but the space beside her on the bed was warm. Justin had been there. She could still smell him in the pillow. Still feel the hum of his presence.
But now…
Something was wrong.
She sat up slowly, the ache in her body familiar by now. The scar on her shoulder itched under the bandage—hot, angry. She pushed the blanket back and moved to her feet, bare toes curling into the hardwood.
Downstairs.
That’s where the pull was coming from.
She padded quietly down the hall and to the stairs, heart already beating harder the closer she got. The kitchen light was on, voices low and tense.
She stopped just before the doorway.
Justin stood at the counter, facing a woman Waiya didn’t recognize. Tall, dark skin, piercing eyes, sharp as winter glass. She looked like she came with warnings carved into her bones.
They hadn’t noticed her yet.
Until the charm pulsed again.
This time, Waiya felt it.
Her body jerked like someone plucked a thread running down her spine. She stumbled slightly, hand catching the doorframe.
Justin turned immediately. “Waiya.”
The woman’s eyes widened, just a little. “She’s feeling it. That’s not good.”
Waiya looked from Justin to the charm and back again. “What the hell is that?”
Justin started toward her. “Something we need to talk about.”
“Start talking,” she said, steadying herself even as her knees screamed to buckle.
The other woman stepped forward, slowly, like Waiya was some kind of skittish animal. “You don’t know me, but I know you. Monica. I used to run with your boy here, back before things got ugly. And this—” she pointed to the charm—“this little piece of hell? It’s got your blood humming like a drum.”
Waiya narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
Justin placed a hand on her back. “Because someone’s hunting you through it. Not just you—your lineage.”
She blinked. “Donquavious?”
Monica nodded. “And worse. He’s awakened something that knows how to follow blood across generations. This charm was buried at the foot of my grandmother’s grave. Your name was carved into the string binding it.”
Waiya stepped forward, the charm pulsing harder the closer she got. She stared at it—red cloth soaked in something old and rotten, knotted like a noose.
“I can feel it,” she whispered. “It wants me.”
“It wants your power,” Monica corrected. “What you carry. Your family’s protection didn’t just start with your grandmother. It goes back centuries. And someone wants to sever that thread for good.”
Waiya swallowed hard. Her scar was burning now—bright and bitter. She looked at Justin. “Can we destroy it?”
He hesitated.
Monica answered for him. “Not yet. We have to follow it. Trace it to the source.”
“And if I touch it?” Waiya asked.
“You’ll see what it sees,” Monica said. “But it’ll see you too.”
Silence settled heavy in the kitchen.
Waiya nodded slowly. “Then we do it. But I’m not running again. I want to see where this thread leads.”
Justin looked at her like he wanted to argue—but didn’t. He just moved to her side and held out his hand. She took it, grounding herself in the warmth of his skin.
Monica placed the charm between them on the table.
The thing pulsed once more.
Then everything around them began to shift.
- Writer
