The Crow & The Ghost: A Dystopian AU Simon Ghost Riley x Reader

Chapter Twenty-Two: Have Violent Ends

         You're a ghost like me.
         You let the words wash over you as you follow Riley through the dark, eerily quiet halls of the Red Rider nightclub. The only sound that echos on the walls is the cry of Meara O'Sullivan as she nurses her dismembered thumb.
         You're a ghost like me.
         It's a mantra to keep you grounded, a prayer to keep you sane, an affirmation to keep you whole.
         A ghost was not the same thing as a monster.
         You had to believe that could be true.
         There are dead Undead bodies littering the floor, many if not all of them dispatched by Riley, Keegan, and Soap.
         "You made a massacre of this place," You say quietly, stepping over an already rotted body. Your weapons are loose in your hands.
         You can't smell a damned thing—maybe the stench of the Undead had truly burnt off your scent receptors for good. You wanted to be nervous about it, but you couldn't find it in you to be. It was a blessing in this moment.
         "We agreed to give you ten minutes," Riley says gruffly over his shoulder, his large firearm perched in both hands across his torso. "After that, all bets were off."
         "Kieran and I had it under control," You reply. You think of Kieran, who looked shaken and off-kilter when he had left you only a few minutes ago. You hoped he had found Keegan or Soap, or had at least managed to slip away without anyone else bothering him. He had had a long night with seemingly never-ending twists and turns.
        He needed you now. You make a mental note to call him once you and Riley are in the clear.
        "I know that," Riley says softly, not stopping or turning back. You reach the lobby of Red Rider but neither of you hesitate, moving fast, and Riley pushes the entrance door open with his shoulder, the heavy door flinging open so fast that it smacks against the exterior wall as both of you slip through.
        You open your mouth to say something else, but before you can, a hand claps over it. You take in a breath to scream—but your senses are assaulted with the most foul stench you've ever encountered, and you release a gag that is so strong you feel the bile rising in your throat as the body attached to the hand covering your mouth yanks you backwards and off your feet.
        This person is strong and has managed to not only catch you by surprise, but also knock you off balance, and your boots scuffle on the pavement as you scramble for purchase, your body seizing between heaving gags and helpless screams as you are dragged backwards, back into Red Rider.
        Within seconds you realize that you aren't going to get your feet back on the ground—not in a way that will give you leverage to overpower this person from behind before you're dragged back into the club. Your hands, which had been trying to get your attacker off your face, now fly to your sides as you grab onto the doorway, one of your hands immediately being pinched by the door itself as it slowly moves away from the wall it just bounced off of. Your boots hooked themselves on the doorway as best you can, and you're using every extremity you have to catch yourself on the entryway before your attacker fully drags you back in.
        Riley turns around immediately, his eyes flaring with shock and rage when he sees the situation from a vantage point that you can't. He sprints back towards you, a knife at the ready in his hand as he comes right up to you and reaches over your head, stabbing hard.
        Your attacker makes a sharp sound and releases you, causing you to fall backwards as your hands and feet lose grip on the doorway. Riley steps right over you, careful not to actually plant his feet on your body as he moves, his large frame grabbing whoever was holding you.
        Black blood splatters over your face from above, and you hear the unmistakable sound of a blade being shunted into a body over and over and over again. This last for several seconds, and you imagine that your attacker has been dead for some time now, but Riley doesn't stop, and the blood won't stop falling, and Riley is standing over you so you can't see or move or do anything other than gag and try to shield your face.
        Finally, Riley tires, and you hear the hard smack of a body hitting the ground somewhere beyond you. The blood has truly doused your face now, and it has a thick consistency to it that lets you know that your attacker was Undead.
        You hear Riley shuffle back a few steps before his hands come under your armpits and he lifts you up to standing, placing you on your feet like you're a doll.
        "Keep your eyes closed," He says, his voice hoarse and near breathless. You hear him fiddle with a zipper on his vest and then you feel a rough cloth on your face as Riley wipes away the blood quickly and harshly, as if he's moving as fast as he can. He spends extra time on your eyes and mouth, being gentle so not as to push the decaying blood through.
        "Fucking Undead son of a fucking bitch," Riley curses over and over again, a vicious chant that makes your blood run cold. He takes the cloth off of your face. "Open your eyes." He instructs, and you see him throw the cloth somewhere behind you as he scans your face, his hooded eyes inspecting every bit of you.
        "Thank you," You breathe. You pause for a second. "I think I'm in shock."
        "That's fine with me for now," Riley replies. "I can't handle you screaming bloody murder."
        "Bloody murder?" You say, your voice breaking on the words, before you suddenly erupt into laughter, laughing right in Riley's face. He flinches backwards, surprised at the sound.
        His gaze looks bewildered for a moment before his brow flattens and he understands—you are most definitely in shock, but you can't contain how your body reacts to it. You can't stop laughing, and soon your eyes fill with tears, your stomach already aching, and you begin to double over, repeating the phase 'bloody murder' over and over like it's the funniest joke you've ever heard.
        "Christ," Riley mutters, grabbing you by the elbow. "Please calm down, Crow." He begins to pull you towards the exit.
        You try to stop laughing but you can't, and now you feel as though you're losing your ability to breathe. Your chest constricts at the thought of falling into a panic attack, and yet you feel completely out of control, like you can't stop anything that's happening to you. Riley puts his other arm around you and walks you both towards the door, trying for a second time to leave Red Rider.
        Before you can even think about it, you twist in Riley's hold and scan behind you to see what happened, to try to piece together what you missed.
        The bouncer is on the ground, and the only reason you know it's him is because of the clothing. His face is now a blackened void, destroyed beyond comprehension, and his rotted blood is a chunky pool around him.
        Riley had stabbed the man until his head was nothing but a bloody, mangled pulp.
        You suddenly stop laughing. You stop breathing all together. You hold the breath in your lungs like it's the last bit of air you're ever going to get.
        Riley uses his shoulder to nudge you forward, forcing you to turn around.
        "Don't look," He says, though he must know that you saw. "Now, let's try this again."
        You exit Red Rider together, and Riley rushes you away from the building. Your feet move in time with his, somehow, but you still haven't taken a breath.
        It's not until you round a building, get to a spot where the light of the neon sign for Red Rider no longer touches the world around you, that you finally exhale—and fall to your hands and knees as you get sick.