Chapter 9: Haunted Confessions

Theron

The forest stank of old fire and new rot, every step forward crunching through a lattice of blackened ferns that puffed ash at ankle height. They were three days’ march from the Brotherhood’s last perimeter and less than a half-day from the coordinates Riven called the Gate, nobody had agreed on a better name, not that it mattered. Even in daylight, the woods hung dim and stifling. Hollow energy saturated the ground, screwing with compass and sense alike, so that every hour felt stolen from an unreconciled afterlife.

Theron took point, mostly because he didn’t trust himself at anyone’s back. Archer trailed just close enough to catch him if he crumpled, but just far enough not to force a conversation neither of them wanted to have. Claire and Elira stayed out of line of sight, presumably dealing with their own damage, but also, he suspected, giving him space to fall apart.

Riven marched with military precision, a dark smudge at his periphery. He could feel her tracking every step, cataloguing his pace and posture, probably even his pulse rate. She’d said nothing since the last camp, not when the ground opened under Elira’s boot, not when Theron coughed blood into his own palm, not when the Hollow runes on his neck lit up in a spasm that nearly took him down for good.

He told himself it didn’t bother him. He was an old hand at silence. But after three days, it wore him raw.

They cleared a ravine, the slopes slick with mud and what might have once been human marrow, and climbed up into a stand of trees so burned out they barely cast a shadow. The stench here was something between cooked pork and formaldehyde, and it brought back the worst of the memory. His stride wobbled. The runes along his collarbone, normally dormant, pulsed with dull amber light.

At the crest, Theron stopped walking. The world spun a quarter-turn around him, then snapped back into place. He found a rotten log, swept away the worst of the soot, and sat. Riven followed. She didn’t sit, just stood with arms folded, gaze fixed on the near distance as if expecting a sniper’s dot to bloom on her temple at any moment.

He wanted to ask her if she’d slept at all since the training room, but the words dried in his throat. Instead, he just waited. Maybe she’d leave. Maybe she’d say something first, and that would spare him what he knew he had to do. But Riven had never, not once, made anything easier for him. So he spoke.

“It started with a dog,” he said. “I was fifteen. Barely enough teeth in my head to matter. They brought me in after a bender, the usual three-day blackout. When I woke up, there was a dog chained to the table. Big thing, some kind of mastiff. Beautiful animal. I was supposed to kill it.”

Riven said nothing. A muscle flickered in her jaw, but she kept her eyes on the horizon.

“They gave me a blade,” Theron went on. “Dull as shit. I refused. They beat me for an hour and tried again. Still refused. That’s when they started using the marks, bio-runic triggers, they called them. Every time I fought the command, the sigils heated up, like getting shocked from inside your own bones. The third time, I blacked out. When I woke up again, the dog was dead and my hands were… ” He looked down at his palms, flexing them. The scars there had faded, but the memory hadn’t. “Covered in it.”

He thought he’d feel lighter for telling it. Instead, the weight doubled.

“They worked their way up. Birds. Then people. It wasn’t always death. Sometimes they’d just have me… hurt them. I didn’t remember all of it, not until later. It’s like every new mark unlocked another file. By the end, they could say a word and my body just did what it was told.” He realized his hands were shaking, a slow, steady tremor. He tucked them under his arms.

“I hated it. But part of me wanted to please them. Not the Brotherhood. My… ” He stopped, searched for the word, “handlers. The scientists. They knew how to smile at you, how to treat you like you were special for being the one who survived. I clung to that. Like a badge.” He bit down on the next words, but forced them out anyway. “Even now, I miss it sometimes.”

He waited for Riven to laugh, or to sneer, or just to walk away. She did none of those. Instead, she knelt in the mud in front of him. The movement was abrupt, off-balance, and for a second Theron thought she was going to hit him. Instead, she just looked up, her eyes a shade lighter in the ashy air.

“It wasn’t a dog for me,” she said, voice barely above the wind. “It was my mother.” Theron swallowed. The world tilted again.

“I don’t remember her face,” Riven said. “She was already gone by the time the prophecy started. My father thought he could beat fate by hiding me. It didn’t work. The Order found us. They made me watch while they branded him, over and over, until he couldn’t even speak. I was six.” Her lips barely moved. “They used the same marks on him as on you. Maybe the same formula.”

Theron looked at her forearms, at the pale, almost invisible lines just beneath the skin. “They never meant for me to be a person,” she said. “Just a way to keep the bloodline running. I’m not special. I’m a petri dish.” The wind kicked up, scattering black ash across her boots and hands.

Theron felt his mouth moving before the words assembled. “I’m sorry.” Riven barked a laugh, flat and genuine. “Don’t be. You made it further than I ever did.” She pulled up her sleeve, exposing the web of old scars, a network of sigils that looped from wrist to elbow. “I used to think I was chosen. That I could do something good, break the cycle. But it’s all math. All rituals. We’re just variables.”

He reached out. He hadn’t meant to, but her skin looked so raw, the scars so familiar, he couldn’t help himself. He touched her arm, lightly, at the spot where three sigil-lines met and overlapped. For a second, neither of them breathed. “You’re more than math,” he said.

She looked at him, for real this time, and he saw the smallest glimmer of something he’d never expected to find in her: fear. “Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t know what to do with it.”

They sat in silence, the kind that didn’t demand fixing. The air around them was thick with static and the unburnt memory of better forests, but for a moment, Theron felt the fire in his chest cool to a manageable simmer. Riven rolled her sleeve back down and wiped her hand on her pant leg, as if the story had left a physical stain.

“You know,” she said, softer, “the Order’s prophecies say we’re supposed to die at the Gate. That’s the whole point. No survivors. No cycle.” Theron grinned, and it cracked his face in half. “Guess we’ll have to fuck that up for them, too,” he said. Riven’s answering smile was smaller, but sharper.

They stood, mud caked to their shins, the air no cleaner but somehow easier to breathe. The path ahead was a mess of collapsed trees and fractured stone, the kind of terrain only people built for suffering would see as a challenge.

Theron checked the runes on his arms, still glowing, but now only faintly. He caught Riven watching, and she did not look away. “Let’s get moving,” he said. She nodded, and for once, she fell into step beside him, not behind. As they walked, their arms brushed once, then again, and neither of them flinched.

They left nothing behind but a drift of gray and the slow, improbable pulse of something almost human.

~~**~~

It was easy to lose time in the dead woods. After a while, the light between the trees could be any hour. Theron didn’t realize how far they’d gone until his legs buckled with a fatigue that was less exhaustion than anesthesia, a dulling of the line between inside and out.

They stopped at a choke point in the forest, where the fallen trees tangled together like rib bones around a heart. The ground was less muddy here, but every surface seemed to breathe with the slow respiration of Hollow magic. Even the air prickled his skin in unpredictable bursts. Riven collapsed first, letting herself slide down the blackened trunk until her butt hit the ground. Theron hovered, uncertain, then let gravity settle him beside her.

It was an awkward closeness, elbows knocking. For a few minutes, neither spoke. Finally, Riven broke the quiet with something close to humor. “If I ever get out of this, I’m buying a house in the desert. Never want to see fucking mud again.” Theron snorted. “I’d be happy just not to wake up covered in blood for once.”

She flexed her hands. “You remember when it started for you?” He hesitated. “Sometimes. I think they kept wiping my memory, but a few things slipped through. Mostly the after, not the during.” Riven nodded, almost approving. “Makes sense. They want muscle memory, not guilt.”

Theron rolled up his sleeve, showing a particularly nasty patchwork of scars that wrapped his forearm like barbed wire. “You ever get used to it?” he asked. “The idea that every scar is somebody else’s decision?”

Riven didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached out, one finger grazing the edge of the wound. It was a gentle touch, and the heat from her skin made the scar tingle as if the Hollow fire remembered its own making. Theron stilled, waiting for her to flinch or recoil. She didn’t.

“I don’t think they’re all theirs,” Riven said, voice softer now. “Some of them are ours. We survived. That’s not what they wanted.” He looked at her, really looked, and saw past the boredom she wore like a mask. Her face was gaunt, almost wolfish, but her eyes flickered with intelligence that never quite let itself be revealed.

“Does it scare you?” he asked. “What?” she said, still tracing his arm. “That you might never get it out. The programming. The curse.” She hesitated, her hand going still. “No,” she said, but it was a lie. “What scares me is if it’s gone, I won’t have anything left. It’s all I ever had.” He laughed, and it came out brittle. “You sound like me.”

“Maybe I am,” she replied. “Maybe we’re all the same programming, running on different machines.” The silence grew comfortable, and the gap between their shoulders vanished by degrees. At one point, their knees touched, and neither of them moved away. Theron felt his own heart thumping, not with panic but with anticipation, a current that hummed through his chest and out into the world.

Riven leaned back, head tilted toward the raw gray sky. “If you could walk away, right now, would you?” He thought about it, but not for long. “No. I need to see the end.” She gave a half smile, “Me too.”

They sat like that, backs pressed to the same blackened trunk, the air thick with unspoken things. Theron became aware of his breathing, how it matched the rhythm of hers. At first, he thought it was a trick of the Hollow field, some resonance in the air. But then she turned, just enough that their faces nearly aligned.

He waited. He could feel the pulse of the runes in his skin, the way they always did when his body was on the verge of something irreversible.

Riven’s hand moved again, this time bolder. She traced the line of a scar across his knuckles, then up to the crook of his elbow. Her fingers were cool, steady. She stopped at a spot on his bicep where the Brotherhood had once seared a command phrase directly into the flesh.

She pressed her thumb to it, hard enough to hurt but not enough to bruise. “Does it still burn?” she asked. “Not as much,” Theron replied, voice barely a whisper. “Sometimes I don’t notice it at all, if I’m with people who…” He trailed off, embarrassed. “Who what?”

“Who know what it’s like to want something else,” he said, finally. She nodded, as if that made perfect sense. Then she leaned in, so close he could smell the ghost of sweat and smoke in her hair. Their foreheads touched, the contact sparking through his body like a second heart starting up in his chest. Riven’s breath caught, and he felt her fingers tighten on his arm. She let go, just for a second, then reached up and traced the edge of his jaw with a knuckle.

It was the kind of touch he hadn’t felt in years. Gentle, but also searching, as if testing the boundaries of what could be allowed. He caught her hand, pressed it between both of his, and held it there. “This is my choice,” he said, echoing her words from before. “Not theirs.”

Riven smiled, a flash of teeth, but her eyes glistened in the ashy light. “Prove it,” she said.

He kissed her. It was clumsy, mouths dry and chapped, but she didn’t resist. She leaned in, hunger sharp and immediate, as if she’d been waiting for an excuse to lose herself. Theron matched her, hand sliding behind her head, the other clinging to her shoulder.

The Hollow runes flared, lighting the clearing in brief, pulsing bursts, but this time, he felt no pain. Only the throb of a thousand burned-out memories rearranging themselves into something new.

They broke apart, faces flushed, breathing hard. For the first time, he felt truly awake. Riven pressed her forehead to his again, nose brushing the bridge of his. “You know we’re fucked, right?” He laughed, warm and real. “Completely.” She licked her lips, then bit down on a smile.

They stayed like that, locked in the small circle of their own making, while the rest of the world fell away. When the wind picked up, carrying another wave of ash down the line, Theron pulled her closer, and this time, she didn’t let go.

It happened with the slow inevitability of a storm rolling in: first the prickle at the skin, then the weight in the air, and finally the downpour that swept everything else away.

Theron remembered it in flashes, even as it unfolded: the way Riven pulled his mouth to hers with a hunger that bordered on pain, the scrape of her teeth on his lower lip, the taste of blood and ash and something rawer than both. He pressed back, desperate to take more, needing her body to override the static in his head, and she let him, responding with the kind of urgency he’d only ever read about in field manuals and bad literature.

Their hands were everywhere. His slid under the hem of her shirt, fingers rough with old calluses, and she shivered when he grazed the puckered scar at her waist. She retaliated by yanking his collar so hard the fabric split, then biting down on the exposed hollow of his throat. Each time he thought he’d reached the edge of her violence, she went further, always pushing, never retreating.

He was almost grateful for it. It left no room for thinking, no room for the Brotherhood’s old mantras or the shame that lingered after. But the world outside their clearing was relentless, and every sound, the snap of a branch, the distant rattle of wind, threatened to bring it back.

Maybe that was why Riven kept her boots on, her pants unzipped but not fully shed, why she pressed her thigh between his legs and ground down hard. She didn’t want to be naked, not here, not ever, and he understood that better than he could say. He let her dictate the rules, matching every movement with one of his own, until she moaned into his mouth and for a second he forgot to breathe.

It wasn’t gentle. When her fingers dug into his arm and hit a fresh, half-healed sigil, his whole body jerked and the runes along his side flashed white-hot. He made a sound, half pleasure, half surprise, and she stopped, searching his face for a sign that she’d gone too far.

He nodded, gasping, and she went back to work.

His hands mapped her body the way a blind man reads braille: learning the stories in each scar, the places where old wounds had toughened instead of softened her. At her hip, he found a sigil that matched his own, different design, same brand, and he kissed it, tongue and teeth both, until she trembled. Riven was not a woman given to softness, but when she tangled her fingers in his hair and pulled his face to her chest, Theron felt the Hollow fire inside him sublimate to something cleaner than hunger.

She straddled him, using his lap for leverage, and ground down until the zipper of his fatigues nearly sliced a line through both of them. Her own hand was already down the front of his pants, guiding him into the slick, impossible heat between her thighs. It took less than a minute for him to realize he was shaking, not from fear but from the effort of not giving in too soon.

She bit his ear, then whispered: “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare.” He laughed, couldn’t help it, and the sound was ragged and alive. They fucked like there might not be a tomorrow, which was true enough. Each thrust was a punctuation mark, a denial of every story that had ended in violence instead of love.

He tried to hold back, to savor it, but the way she clenched around him, hips bucking, head thrown back, made restraint impossible. He came with a shudder that racked his whole body, and she followed, biting his shoulder so hard he felt blood bloom under her tongue.

When it was over, they collapsed in a tangle, the taste of sweat and ash heavy in the air. Riven lay with her head on his chest, breathing as if every inhale was the first she’d ever taken. For a long time, neither spoke.

Eventually, she propped herself up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She smirked, almost shy, but the effect was ruined by the wild mess of her hair and the blood on her teeth. “Was it everything you dreamed?” she asked. He rolled his eyes, grinning despite himself. “I haven’t dreamed in years.”

She laughed, a real laugh, low and unforced, and rested her chin on his sternum. “We should probably get back.” “Probably,” he agreed, but made no move to stand.

Instead, he ran his fingers down her spine, gentle now, and was surprised when she didn’t pull away. He could feel the hum of her scars against his, the residual energy of Hollow magic settling into their skin like static after a thunderstorm. They lay like that for what felt like forever, wrapped in Theron’s cloak, the smell of death and sweat and ozone saturating every thread.

Eventually, Riven sighed and rolled off him, standing in one smooth motion. She refastened her pants, zipped up her jacket, and laced her boots with the efficiency of someone who’d spent too much of her life getting dressed in a hurry.

She offered him a hand. He took it, letting her haul him upright. They regarded each other for a beat. He saw the same fear in her eyes as before, but now it was tempered with something softer. Not hope, maybe, but the willingness to hope. They didn’t talk about love. They didn’t need to. The act was its own language, a shared refusal to be anyone else’s weapon, even for a night.

He zipped himself up, then shouldered his gear, and she did the same. They set off through the woods, retracing their steps, the rhythm of their footsteps almost in sync. At the edge of the clearing, Riven paused. She looked back, just once, then pressed two fingers to the inside of his wrist, a brief, grounding touch.

“Try not to get killed,” she said. He smiled, wide as he could, and watched her melt into the darkness ahead. He followed, the pulse of her touch still bright against his skin. The world was still broken, and so were they, but for now, that would have to do.