Chapter 31: The Hunt Begins
1442 Words
The house was still soaked in yesterday’s sweat and smoke.
Waiya stood barefoot in the doorway, arms crossed, her eyes narrowed toward the tree line. Sunlight kissed the edge of her braid, making it look like a black flame. Her body was sore, but her spirit felt sharper than ever. The first day of training had cracked something open in her, something raw and ancient — but this morning felt different.
She didn’t need to look to know Justin was behind her.
“Your feet don’t make no damn sound,” she muttered, half-smirking.
“I was tryna let you think in peace,” he said, stepping up beside her. “But you hear everything, huh?”
“Everything that matters.”
Granny’s screen door creaked open behind them, and they both turned.
“Good,” Granny said, her voice like gravel and sage. “Y’all still breathing. That means you ready for the real work now.”
Waiya raised an eyebrow. “You mean yesterday wasn’t real?”
Granny waved a hand like she was brushing off smoke. “That was just warming your bones. Now we train the mind. The spirit. That muscle between your souls. You two got power, but power alone won’t keep you alive. You gotta think like one. Move like one. Be still like one.”
Justin nodded once, slow. “We listening.”
Granny eyed him. “You better be. ‘Cause the entity ain’t gone. It’s out there. Close. Lurking in a crack between now and not yet. And I need y’all to find it.”
Waiya’s head tilted. “Track it?”
“Exactly. Not to fight—not yet. Just to find. Feel where it is. Let your spirits stretch, let your scars speak. You know it by now. It knows you.”
Justin’s jaw flexed. “We goin’ now?”
Granny stepped aside. “Ain’t no time like now.”
They left the house with nothing but their tattoos glowing faint under their sleeves, the memory of flame training in their limbs, and the weight of each other.
The walk through the West Side was quiet. No one made eye contact, but eyes were everywhere. They moved through cracked sidewalks and graffitied fences like smoke, something about them unbothered, untouchable. Justin walked close, but not touching. Waiya could still feel his energy, pulsing steady behind her shoulder like a second heart.
“You remember where it last showed up?” she asked, voice low.
“Yeah,” he said. “By the corner of 12th. Old meat market that ain’t been open since before I got here.”
“Let’s go.”
They didn’t talk much after that. Didn’t need to. Their silence was filled with glances, with the invisible language of knowing someone’s breath pattern, their pace, the way they check corners before stepping out.
But something had shifted between them. Not just the power. The way Justin looked at her now—like she was part of the world he’d always been trying to find.
They turned the corner, and Waiya froze. Justin felt it too.
The air thickened.
Hot and wet like breath on the back of a neck.
They stepped through the broken gate behind the old market. There, smeared across the back wall, was a single dark claw mark—burnt into the brick like lightning had kissed it.
“Found it,” Justin muttered.
Waiya walked up slowly. “No. It left this here for us to find.”
Justin’s eyes narrowed. “You think it’s bait?”
She turned, eyes glowing faint now. “I think it wants us to chase it.”
And even with that warning sitting between them, neither of them said no.
Back at the house, Granny watched from her chair on the porch, a toothpick bobbing between her teeth as they returned. Dirt-smudged. Silent. Charged.
“You seen it?” she asked.
Justin nodded. “It’s trying to be seen now.”
“That means it’s scared,” Waiya added. “Or cocky.”
Granny grinned. “Either way, y’all movin’ right.”
Justin stepped inside after, peeling off his jacket. He glanced at the old rotary phone on the counter. “Granny,” he said, “that phone still work?”
Granny cackled. “You think I keep it around for decoration?”
He picked up the receiver and dialed.
Monica picked up on the second ring.
“Bout time,” she said. “Was wondering if you fell off the damn planet.”
“I’m good,” he said. “Made it to Waiya.”
“Oh, we knew,” she replied. “Your boots showed up in the middle of the night like they’d walked there themselves.”
Justin chuckled, rubbing his forehead. “Granny’s doing.”
“Well, we’re holdin’ on to your stuff. Especially them boots. Ain’t nobody allowed to touch ‘em.”
“Appreciate you.”
There was a pause.
“You sound different,” Monica said softly.
Justin looked out the window toward Waiya. She was sitting on the porch rail now, legs swinging, talking to the spirits like they were her cousins.
“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”
Later that night, Waiya found him in the garden, crouched beside the herbs Granny said sharpened the third eye. He was quiet, brows furrowed like he was listening for something deeper than sound.
She didn’t say anything at first—just knelt beside him, her arm brushing his.
“You ever think about what comes after all this?” she asked quietly.
Justin looked at her, long and soft. “After the fight?”
She nodded.
“I think about what it means to finally feel… home. Not a place. A person.”
Waiya blinked, but didn’t look away. “You saying I’m your house now?”
Justin smirked. “Nah. I’m sayin’ you the fire inside it.”
Justin glanced down at Waiya. Her tattoos flickered like they were alive, responding to something he couldn’t name. He could still feel the weight of her back against his chest from earlier, the way her breath had steadied against him after the battle. And now—despite everything—they stood there, shoulder to shoulder, like the world might finally make sense again.
“Gon’ be a long night,” he muttered, hands in his pockets. “You ready for this?”
Waiya turned to look at him, her gaze soft but sharp, the way it always cut right to the truth. “Been ready. It’s you I’m worried about.”
He chuckled low, stepping closer. “That right?”
She didn’t move away. “You still glowing. Still carrying whatever that thing didn’t break outta you.”
He dropped his head slightly, voice husky. “And you still standing after it tried to feed on you. Scar or not, you ain’t never folded.”
For a moment, the silence wrapped around them like velvet. The world outside Granny’s porch blurred. It was just them. Two warriors shaped by loss, fire, and the heavy kind of love that couldn’t be put into words yet.
Waiya’s fingers brushed the edge of his hand.
“You still mad I didn’t tell you about the scar?” she asked.
Justin’s jaw tightened. “Yeah. But only ‘cause I thought I was losin’ you.”
She looked down, quiet. “I didn’t wanna burden you.”
“Waiya,” he said, voice firm but low, “You are my burden. My peace. My whole damn reason I came back through that portal. If you fall, I fall. We move together now.”
Something cracked in her chest at his words, and she couldn’t stop herself—she leaned in, forehead resting gently against his.
His hand slid to the back of her neck, thumb grazing the base of her braid. “We gon’ find it. That thing. End it.”
She nodded, nose brushing his. “And then what?”
He smiled. “Then we start building something real. But we gotta survive it first.”
“Always dramatic,” she whispered, smirking. “You sure you ain’t from here?”
“I’m sure I’m yours,” he murmured.
They stayed like that a while, letting the last of the sun warm their skin. Letting the world catch its breath around them.
Until the porch door creaked open.
Granny’s voice floated out, dry and amused. “Y’all done makin’ moon-eyes out here? The city ain’t waitin’.”
Waiya and Justin stepped apart, barely.
But the bond between them? That didn’t move an inch.
- Writer
