IM FUSKING SOBBING THIS CHAPTER IS SO SAD
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The door slammed behind him.
Zev barely had time to adjust the strap of his bag before the motel owner's voice chased after him like a whip.
"Get the fuck outta here, Laurent! Don't need cops sniffing around my place 'cause of you!"
Zev kept walking.
"You think I want that kind of trouble? Huh? You little criminal piece of shit—same as the rest of the whores around here! —go fuck up someone else's doorstep!"
He didn't stop.
Didn't turn back.
Didn't let the words land, even as they clawed into the back of his mind like rusted nails.
His fingers tightened around the strap of his bag. Small, pathetic. A few changes of clothes, a crumpled twenty, and his notebook—the only thing that felt real.
The street swallowed him whole.
He adjusted his bag on his shoulder, shoulders rolling, body loose. He was fine. Not sore, not aching, not trembling. Elias had let him sleep. A full day, untouched. Wrapped in warmth that wasn't his, something almost like safety. Maybe the only real rest he'd had in years.
He kept moving, eyes scanning ahead—not looking for clients, not looking for cops. Just a bench. Some corner of the city to disappear into for the night.
He passed a pawn shop, its barred windows displaying rows of watches, rings, a few instruments collecting dust. Forgotten things. His fingers twitched, muscle memory whispering how easy it would be. But he didn't stop. Didn't need to.
Didn't care.
He walked.
He walked, and the world didn't care.
His lips parted slightly, breath curling in the night air. A hum slipped out before he even thought about it.
"Ashes drift where ghosts don't tread,
Footsteps lighter than the dead."
Soft. Thoughtless. A habit more than anything.
The city didn't listen.
No one ever did.
Despite that, Zev kept going.
"Nights break open like old wounds,
Spilling streets where no one waits."
The neon signs flickered in the distance. A group of men laughed outside a bar, drunk and leaning into one another like puppets with loose strings. A woman smoked on the corner, her gaze skimming over him before moving on. A dog rummaged through a torn trash bag, tail curled between its legs.
His lips barely moved as his voice slipped out again.
"Ghosts don't knock and ghosts don't wait,
They leave their hands in empty space."
His ribs tensed.
Not from pain. From something else. Something tight and wordless.
Maybe it was because, for a fleeting moment, he had tasted what most people would call happiness. And now, it was slipping through his fingers, a cruel reminder of everything he could have had—everything he had been denied for so many years.
He was done ignoring it.
The bus stop was empty when he reached it. The bench was worn, cracked at the edges. Good enough. He dropped his bag onto the seat first, then sat beside it, one knee drawn up, arms loose around it.
The streets hummed—cars rolling past, voices bleeding into the hum of the city's never-ending breath.
He tapped his fingers against his knee.
Didn't think. Didn't stop it.
"Some men leave their names in stone,
Some leave nothing when they go."
He swallowed.
Tipped his head back.
The sky stretched out above him, dark and endless.
His fingers curled around the edge of his notebook.
Didn't open it. Didn't need to.
The words already lived under his skin.
"He carries silence like a steady tide,
never rushing, never retreating—
just there, lapping at the edges of me.
Hands that never take, only offer,
a jacket, a meal, a name spoken like it belongs to me.
Eyes like green glass catching light,
watching, waiting, never prying—
just knowing.
He tells me to take care, like it's easy,
like it's something I've ever known how to do.
I have nothing worth keeping,
but still, he stays.
I have nothing worth keeping,
but still, he stays."
Zev sat hunched forward for a while, arms draped over his knees, fingers tapping absently against the fabric of his jeans. The city moved around him, voices and engines and footsteps blending into a dull hum.
Eventually, he shifted, sliding lower until he was lying on his side. His bag rested against his stomach, one arm curled around it, the other tucked under his head, a poor excuse for a pillow. His legs bent slightly, feet barely hanging over the edge of the bench.
The metal pressed uncomfortably against his ribs, but he'd slept on worse.
His fingers twitched, tightening briefly on the strap of his bag before going still.
He exhaled.
Closed his eyes.
And for the first time in hours, he let the city move without him.
"Take care of yourself", He said.
YOU ARE READING
A Ghost With No Name- Bl- Officer and Thief
Romance"But you say my name like it's something to keep, like it's worth more than echoes, more than the deep. So tell me, strange lantern, strange man with no chains- what do you want from a ghost with no name?" A slow-burn romance where a hardened...
