Share

Zombi

Author: Hope Denaise
last update Last Updated: 2025-06-04 21:30:58

***Dragon’s POV***

The rain stings like Esteban’s belt—a remembered pain, thin and precise, splitting skin and pride alike. I burst onto the porch, the wrench in my hand slick with grease and sweat. The bayou’s humid breath clings to my lungs, thick with the iron tang of approaching violence.

“¡Mamá! What’s—?” The words die in my throat.

Dru’s sprawled in the mud, her hair matted to her face like Spanish moss strangling a live oak, clutching the snapped rosary like it’s a live wire. The chain glints in the stormlight, serpentine and cruel. My breath hitches—that scar on her wrist, same as the one snaking across my brow. The one he gave me with his wedding ring, the jagged edge catching on my eyelid as I screamed. Three years old. First lesson: flinching earns you worse.

Big Danni strides past, his shadow warping the veve (Vodou symbol) on his leather vest—Papa Legba’s sacred crossroads, drawn in cornmeal and blood the night Mamá swore she’d
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • Iron Veve's Kiss    Burning Wings

    ***Dru’s POV***Haitians know butterflies carry the dead. These aren’t butterflies. They crawl over the windows, smothering the light, their wings leaving grease-black streaks. Uncle Danni curses, swatting at them, but they cling like leeches. One brushes my neck—its legs bite, sharp as fish hooks. I slap it away, my palm smeared with ash. “Iron,” I mutter. Iron breaks spells. But the nail in my pocket’s gone, lost in the mud. Marisol staggers out, clutching her shawl to her face. “Es él,” she whispers. “The butterflies… he used them in Guerrero.” Her voice cracks. “The whole village coughed blood by dawn.” I grab the closest weapon—Uncle Danni’s Harley chain—and swing. Butterflies scatter, but more swarm my arms, weighing me down. Somewhere, Dragon’s shouting, Mamá’s praying, but all I hear is wings. Then, a click. The butterfly swarm thickens, their wings slicing the air like razor-edged paper. My eyes

  • Iron Veve's Kiss    Zombi

    ***Dragon’s POV*** The rain stings like Esteban’s belt—a remembered pain, thin and precise, splitting skin and pride alike. I burst onto the porch, the wrench in my hand slick with grease and sweat. The bayou’s humid breath clings to my lungs, thick with the iron tang of approaching violence. “¡Mamá! What’s—?” The words die in my throat. Dru’s sprawled in the mud, her hair matted to her face like Spanish moss strangling a live oak, clutching the snapped rosary like it’s a live wire. The chain glints in the stormlight, serpentine and cruel. My breath hitches—that scar on her wrist, same as the one snaking across my brow. The one he gave me with his wedding ring, the jagged edge catching on my eyelid as I screamed. Three years old. First lesson: flinching earns you worse. Big Danni strides past, his shadow warping the veve (Vodou symbol) on his leather vest—Papa Legba’s sacred crossroads, drawn in cornmeal and blood the night Mamá swore she’d

  • Iron Veve's Kiss    Black Butterflies and Rosaries

    ***Dragon's POV***“DRU!” I choke on her name, the sound torn from my throat, as I jolt upright. Every muscle screaming in protest, drenched in a cold sweat that clings like a second layer. My throat’s raw, as if I’d been screaming for hours into a silent void. Cotton sheets sticking to my skin like an uncomfortable shroud. For a disoriented second, the nightmare still clings to me. The phantom scent of ash in my nostrils, the searing heat of black fire still prickling beneath my eyelids, the frantic beat of my heart, echoing of a thousand black wings.Then I feel her. Dru’s grip on my shoulders is vice-tight. “Breathe. It’s me.” Her voice is steady, but I hear the edge in it. The one she gets when she’s scared but won’t admit it. I blink, the salt of my sweat stinging my eyes—blurring the edges of the familiar room. Dawn’s pale light paints her in muted shades of gray and a soft, ethereal blue. She’s real. Solid. No flickering black f

  • Iron Veve's Kiss    Smoke and Mirrors

    ***Marisol’s POV*** The air pressed down on me, thick as a wet grave shroud. The scent of damp earth flooded my senses, clinging to the back of my throat like a forgotten sorrow. I was back in that place. The ghost of my childhood home. Its adobe walls now sagging like rotten fruit. The courtyard tiles cracked and sprouting blackened thorns that wept a viscous, amber resin—sticky and smelling faintly of decay. The bougainvillea, my mother’s pride, was a withered skeleton against the pale sky of the dream. Its papery flowers replaced by husks that rattled like dried scorpion tails in the wind.Mamá’s voice surfaced, soft as the petals she once nurtured: *“Marisol, beauty is defiance here. Remember that.” Her hands, soil-caked and steady, cupped the blooms. ‘They thrive when neglected,’ she lied. A lesson in survival.”* Now, the thorns pierced my skin, mocking her memory. A low, thrumming dread vibrated through me, a sound like a tho

  • Iron Veve's Kiss    The Fix-It List

    ***Big Danni's POV***I walk around the house towards the garage, her words still ringing in my ears. He was protecting her before I got here! Her revelation pounding through my skull.... saved her from being raped. The stench of gasoline morphed into blood—Marie’s blood—and suddenly I was back in 2008.**FLASHBACK—New Orleans, 2008** The warehouse reeks of fish guts and betrayal. I’d tracked Marie’s scream to a rusted shipping container, its sides spray-painted with a grinning calavera—the cartel’s calling card. Shadows pooled at my feet, thick as the Creole curses I spat into the dark. My boots slip on blood-slick concrete as I kick open the shipping container door. Inside, a single bare bulb swung like a hanged man.“Marie?!” Her name echoed back, drowned by a man’s laugh—slick as oil. “Too late, frè.” The voice slithered from the shadows, Spanish accent sharpening the Creole words. “Your sister fought hard. Made it… personal.”

  • Iron Veve's Kiss    Biker's Logic

    ***Big Danni's POV***The kitchen smelled of burnt coffee and Marisol’s sofrito—onions caramelizing in guilt and garlic. Saints watched from peeling walls: La Virgen’s gaze followed me, her porcelain face cracked like my resolve. St. Lazarus with his crutches, the paint flaking like scabs—the same saint Mamá prayed to when Papa’s cough turned bloody. Mamá’s knees bruised the church floor, her rosary beads clicking like gunshots as she begged Lazarus to spare Papa’s lungs. He died anyway. Now the saint’s crutches mock me—Nobody walks away clean. Guilt? Naw. Guilt’s for folks who think they got choices. I just got consequences. As Dru bounds down the stairs in Dragon’s shirt, my coffee turns to ash in my mouth. Look at her. His shirt swallowed her whole, sleeves rolled to her elbows. That laugh… Last time I heard it, she was three, chasing fireflies in the bayou before Louise locked her in that house. Her laughter—a shotgun blast—shattered the silence she’d armored

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status