Page 98 of Ghosted

I should ignore it. Every vibration lately feels like a warning.

Jagger.

Johnny.

Milo asking why I look like I got cursed by a Victorian ghost. Campus gossip. Fight clips. Blurry photos. People whispering about Wraith like he isn’t a person, like he’s a campus cryptid with fists.

The phone buzzes again, so I grab it with a sigh and unlock the screen.

It’s a story post from an account I don’t even follow, shared to me by someone with no caption.

Black background. White block letters. Grainy photo of the cage.

BROTHER VS BROTHER.

CUTTER BLOOD IN THE CAGE.

FRIDAY NIGHT.

WRAITH DOESN’T LOSE. FAMILY DOESN’T COUNT.

For a second, I just stare at it.

My brain reads the words once.

Twice.

Then everything inside me drops.

“No,” I say to my empty apartment, sitting up so fast my blanket slides off my lap.

Jagger agreed to fight Johnny.

Amazing.

Fucking perfect.

Because apparently the best solution to trauma, blackmail, and two brothers with enough issues to qualify as a research project is a cage fight while half the campus films it.

I’m not scared at first, which probably says something terrible about me. The first thing I feel is anger. Hot and fucking immediate. Sharp enough to get me on my feet before I even know what I’m doing.

A cage fight won’t fix what happened. It won’t erase the photos. It won’t give me my darkroom back or make Johnny safer, saner or less capable of turning anything he touches into a weapon.

It will put Jagger exactly where Johnny wants him, and he knows that.

That’s what makes it so much worse.

I’m already grabbing my boots.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I tell the crabs, even though neither of them is looking at me because they are crabs and somehow still the most emotionally stable males in my life. “This is not a spiral, or anything. It’s just an errand.”

Ernie stays half-hidden near the water dish.

Bernie knocks into the food bowl, pauses, then keeps going.

“Very helpful,” I mutter as I head out the door, clicking the lock into place.

Jagger’s loft sits above a mechanic shop on the edge of campus.