Todos os capítulos de Obsidian Vow: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 5

The hallway stinks of bleach and piss.The kind of sharp, eye-watering chemical reek that clings to your throat and makes you wonder if it’s worth breathing. I hold my breath anyway as I kneel outside Room 209, the bucket sloshing beside me, my knees aching from the cracked linoleum. There’s a dark stain on the carpet just inside the doorway, wide and dried around the edges. Brown now, but I know what it was when it was fresh. Everyone does.No one bothered to clean it until I clocked in.Figures.I dip the brush in the solution and scrub with slow, practiced strokes, careful not to let the water spread too far. That always makes the smell worse. The sponge scratches softly against the floor, my only companion besides the hum of the flickering wall light overhead. That buzzes like a dying wasp.Somewhere down the hall, someone’s yelling again. Another couple fighting, or maybe someone owes someone else money. It’s hard to keep track. This place attracts the worst kind of ghosts, loud

I really try to pretend it didn’t happen.That the man with the suit and the dead eyes and the ink-covered hands never stepped into my life. That I didn’t see him drag another human being out of this building like it was just another task on his list. That he didn’t look at me like I was nothing.The mop water is colder tonight. Or maybe it’s just me.I scrub harder than I need to, working the brush into the same corner over and over until the grout starts to peel. My body aches in places I don’t usually feel anymore, shoulders, wrists, behind my eyes. Sleep didn’t do much. I lay in bed most of the day with the curtain cracked just enough to watch the street.He never left. Hours sitting in that car. Engine running, eyes on my window.Now he’s gone, and the silence is somehow worse.“Earth to Raine,” snaps a voice behind the front desk. Linda. This woman thinks power is found in petty cruelty and nicotine-stained clipboards.I blink. “Sorry?”“You’re on lobby floors tonight. Not up he

She’s quiet now, has been asleep for a while. Curled into the leather beside me, knees drawn to her chest, head resting against the window like a bruised bird. Her breath is shallow, lips parted, fingers twitching every so often, dreaming of something sharp.The city moves around us in streaks of gold and brake light red. Rain glosses the windshield in slow sweeps, but I haven’t bothered with the wipers. I don’t need clarity to drive.She smells like fear.And beneath that, sweat, old soap, and the faintest trace of cheap, drugstore perfume. Her clothes are worn thin in places, the seams at her knees frayed to threads. The hoodie swallowing her frame is two sizes too big and stained with a dozen stories no one’s ever asked her to tell. Her jeans are clinging to her hips more from wear than design.And yet, she really is fucking beautiful.Not in a soft, sweet way. Not the kind of pretty that asks to be kissed. No. This girl was carved, not born. Her face is sharp where it should be so