The Oath We Broke

Contains substance abuse, themes of sexual violence.

Elias Carter didn’t believe in fate, but he believed in choices. And the one he made tonight would change everything.

The hospital parking lot stretched silent under the pale glow of streetlights, shadows dragging long across the asphalt. The night was a stark contrast to the usual chaos—no sirens wailing, no hurried footsteps, no frantic beep of monitors. Just stillness.

He inhaled the cool air as he moved toward his car, the weight of twelve hours on his feet settling into his bones. Twelve hours of standing guard, watching over the restless, the desperate, the barely holding on. Another shift over.

Outside was serene. A moment to breathe before stepping back into the current.

The next few hours would hit different. The House wasn’t just a place. It was a tether, gravity pulling him toward something that felt like purpose. Another shift, another set of doors to watch. But this one was more.

Inside, they saw him as a brother, a rare steady hand in a world that swallowed girls whole. Trust was scarce, but he’d earned it—not with words, but with presence. He didn’t take; didn’t leer. Didn’t pretend they were anything less than what they were—women making impossible choices. No warnings; no sins. They were human, and Elias was there to make sure they made it through the night.

And the night was going to be shit.

He left the car door open, sitting in the cool air, listening to the relentless ding-ding-ding of the keys still in the ignition. He wasn’t going anywhere—not yet. He took a hit, held it, let the smoke curl in his lungs before exhaling slowly. Stretched his neck, rolled his shoulders, let his mind go blank. Another hit. The goal was dissociation.

Tonight, the books were full. Repeat customers. The kind who didn’t just pay and leave. They lingered, took up space like they owned it. Eyes sharp, smiles dull, smelling of whiskey, sweat, and cheap cologne. Druggies. Runners. Tempers barely leashed. Violent. Hands that knew the weight of a woman’s jaw, the snap of a bone.

Elias rolled his shoulders, flexed his fingers. Kept his face blank. It wasn’t fear curling in his gut—it was knowing. Knowing how men like that moved, how they looked at the world like it owed them something. How the law let them slip through cracks too narrow for the rest of them. He’d been born in those cracks.

Poverty, where eviction notices stacked like playing cards, where dinner was whatever fit between two slices of bread. Survival meant knowing how to make a dollar stretch or how to take one without getting caught.

Fifteen years old, first deal. His uncle’s hand on his shoulder, fingers pressing down like a brand. “You’re a Carter,” he’d said, voice like gravel, like truth. “That name carries weight. You got two choices—graveyard or jail. Figure it out.”

The words had settled deep, wrapped around his ribs, coiled tight. A prophecy. A curse. He carried it like a chip on his shoulder, like a name he couldn’t shake. And yet, he’d managed to avoid both. For now.

One more hit. He debated ghosting. God knows everyone else did eventually. And he had no desire to play pretend and be a fucking hero. One last, long drag, and he brought the engine to life.

The House was lit up, the neon sign buzzing faintly. Inside, Jade was behind the front desk, scrolling on her phone. She didn’t look up when he walked in.

“You’re late,” she muttered, her voice flat but edged with something sharper.

“No shit. Miss me?”

She glanced up, just for a second. Her eyes told him everything—annoyed but relieved.

“You got the desk,” she said, tipping her chin toward the chair.

“Not a chance,” Elias shot back, blowing a smoke ring in her direction. It was half defiance, half play, an attempt to lighten the mood. “I’m just supposed to sit and watch. That’s the deal. I haven’t done the desk in ages. Get someone else.”

“We’re booked. No Trish tonight,” she replied, all business. “Besides, you can sit on your ass here as easy as anywhere else.”

“Funny way to say please.”

A scream cut through the air from upstairs—not pain, but something hollowed out. Elias knew the voice.

He met Jade’s eyes. “These fuckers are early,” he muttered.

“Always.” She didn’t wait for a response, just turned and walked away.

He shook his head, watching her go. Barely nineteen, holding down rent while her grandma’s health faded, Jade was contradiction itself—sharp edges and soft spots, more alive and yet closer to the edge than anyone he’d ever met. She carried attitude like a Johnny Cash song, like a stage light hitting a star in the final act.

But she wasn’t the exception.

They were all like that.

Tasha, eyes sharp, jaw set, dragging herself back up every time her drunk boyfriend knocked her down. Another girl, chasing highs like fireflies, burning through the dark but never quite catching the light. Yet another, quiet, relentless, carrying the weight of a child too young to understand why Mama never came home before sunrise.

None of them were all that different from him. Wanting something more. Fighting against what the world told them they had to be.

He had wanted to be more, too. He’d worked his way through high school, joined every club that would have him, pushed himself forward with the kind of desperate ambition only a kid from the wrong side of town could understand. And through it all, there was Nathan Graves—his best friend, his loudest cheerleader.

Elias took another drag, letting the memories settle in his chest like smoke. High school best friends. Later, roommates. Their first apartment together, splitting rent and takeout. Nathan went to college; Elias went to work. One studied criminal justice, dreaming of law and order. The other worked long hours in security, watching the worst moments of people’s lives and society entered and exited the hospital.

Nathan had struggled that first semester. College wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He was starting to see the cracks in the system, but he still clung to the belief that the law could fix things. That could sort the world into right and wrong. Elias saw the saved and the damned; those who made the rules and those who learned to survive them.

A raised voice snapped his mind back to the present.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” he heard, followed by the pathetic bargaining that always came next.

“You paid for an hour. It’s been an hour,” Tasha said, voice steady but edged with irritation. The men lingered too long, dragging their feet, like they didn’t want to leave or maybe they were too drunk to know how to.

Elias stubbed out his cigarette and walked toward the room. He didn’t hurry; didn’t need to.

“Are we done yet?” Elias asked, his voice low, just loud enough to cut through the hum of the room.

One of them shot him a glance, like he’d just woken up from a fog. He shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Yeah, just—”

“Yeah, just get the fuck out.” Elias stood, the muscles in his back creaking from hours of standing guard, but he didn’t wait. He crossed the room, slow and measured, every step dragging the air tight. They could feel it now. They knew what he was.

“What’s your problem, man?”

“You,” Elias said, voice calm but thick with something colder. “You’re still here. I got things to do.”

The guy stammered something, but it didn’t matter.

“Get out,” Elias said again, his voice hardening.

The guy blinked a couple of times, then turned and left. The other one followed, but they weren’t fast enough. Elias watched them go, jaw tight, feeling the way they hated him. Didn’t care.

He looked at Tasha, his eyes softening just for a second. “You good?”

“Perfect,” she snapped back.

The door swung shut. Finally.

Tasha didn’t look back. Just fixed her skirt, wiped her mouth, and vanished down the hall. Switch flipped.

Elias rolled his shoulders, flexed his hands. He dropped into the chair, the creak of it loud in the hush.

The security monitor flickered. Grainy footage. Empty hall. Front entrance. For now.

His fingers tapped the desk, considered grabbing something better than a cigarette. Something to take the edge off.

Justice. Law. Nathan used to talk about them like they meant something. Like they worked.

Elias stared at the door. The night wasn’t over.

His thumb ran the edge of the desk. Rough, solid. More real than a badge. More real than an oath.

Nathan had believed in both. Convinced Elias to give the academy a shot. “Try it,” he’d said. “See for yourself.”

Elias did. Six months.

The uniform felt wrong. The way the other cadets looked at him—like they already had him figured out. The way they talked—like justice had a zip code. Elias saw it fast. The bending, the breaking, the looking the other way.

Nathan didn’t. Or wouldn’t. He swallowed it whole, took the oath like a prayer. Kept trying to explain things, like Elias just didn’t get it.

“You’re good at this,” Nathan had said after a training drill, breathless, hands braced on his knees. “Better than half these guys.”

Elias had wiped sweat from his mouth, watching him. The way his shirt stuck to his skin. The way his fingers flexed, restless.

“They don’t like me,” Elias had said.

Nathan shook his head. “They don’t know you.”

Elias let that sit. Nathan always said shit like that, like belief alone could make something true.

Another drill. Another night in the weight room, the gym lit with the dull glow of overhead lights. Nathan had pushed Elias too hard, or maybe Elias let him. Bodies colliding, grappling, sweat slicking their arms. When Elias had pinned him, breath heavy, muscles locked, neither of them moved.

Nathan’s pulse under his hand. The barest hitch in his breath.

“Fuck you,” Nathan had muttered, shoving him off, but his voice had caught in his throat.

Elias hadn’t said anything. Just sat back, stretching his arms over his head, watching the way Nathan wouldn’t look at him.

Some things never changed. Nathan still saw the world in black and white. Elias still saw the cracks.

Voices outside, low and laughing, cut through the quiet. Shoes scraped against the pavement, slow and deliberate.

Jade stepped into the room, phone still in hand. “You handling it or just watching?”

He exhaled. “They’re not inside.”

Yet.

A knock. Too casual. Too sure.

Elias cracked the door.

The guy up front grinned, breath sour with booze. “My boy’s looking for a good time.”

His friend peered past him, scanning.

Elias didn’t blink. “Booked.”

“C’mon, man.” The grin didn’t drop, but something in the guy’s tone soured. “Ain’t even check.”

“Didn’t have to.” Elias leaned a little against the frame, making it clear there wasn’t a next move here.

The guy’s jaw ticked. A beat passed. Then another.

Then he lifted his hands, stepping back with a forced chuckle. “Shit, alright.

The guy muttered something under his breath, but he turned, jerking his friend along. They shuffled off, fading into the dark.

Elias shut the door, locked it.

Jade smirked. “Always so charming.”

He dropped into the chair with a grunt. Back to the usual quiet.

His thumb tapped the desk.

Nathan would’ve handled it differently.

Would’ve asked questions, taken statements, made it something official. Tried to sort right from wrong.

Elias just kept the wrong outside.

His mind drifted elsewhere—back to another night, another room, where the air was thick with sweat and something heavier, something unspoken.

Back into a night when his apartment smelled like soap, sweat, and the faint bite of whatever cheap cleaner Nathan insisted on using. The AC rattled uselessly in the window. Nathan was on the floor, shirtless, burning through pushups, muscles flexing under damp skin.

Elias stepped out of the shower, towel slung low on his hips, running another one through his hair. “You training for something, or just hoping I’ll be impressed?”

Nathan huffed, didn’t stop. “Someone’s got to keep their ass in shape.”

Elias smirked, leaning against the counter, watching. “Yeah? Looks a little soft to me.”

Nathan pushed up, sitting back on his knees, rolling his shoulders. “Come say that closer.”

Elias did. He stepped forward, towel draped around his neck now, water still trailing down his chest. He crouched, knuckles grazing the center of Nathan’s sternum, right where his heartbeat lived. Slow, deliberate. His fingers barely skimmed the skin, but they didn’t move away.

Nathan stilled, breath pulling in tight. His eyes flicked up—something unreadable, something steady. Then, slow as anything, he reached out, ran a hand over the inside of Elias’s wrist. Barely pressure, just acknowledgment.

A beat too long.

Elias smirked, just enough to break it. “Careful, Graves. Keep looking at me like that, I’ll start thinking you like me.”

Nathan huffed, rolling his eyes as he pushed to his feet. “Get dressed, asshole.”

Elias let out a quiet laugh, but the space between them stayed charged, thick with something they both felt and neither named.

He rubbed his hand over his face, shaking the thought loose like dust—Nathan was a past that didn’t belong in the present.

Elias’s mind wasn’t on the job. It always circled back to Nathan. And the night shit got bad.

The night Elias sat slumped on the couch, the haze from the joint swirling around him like a ghost. The dim light from the kitchen cut across the room, casting long shadows on the walls. Nathan’s figure filled the doorway, his jaw tight, his eyes sharp. Elias didn’t look up at first. He didn’t need to. He could feel it—the weight of Nathan’s disappointment, heavy and familiar.

Nathan didn’t waste time. “Are you drunk or high this time?”

“What’s it to you, detective?”

Nathan stared at him, his chest heaving. Then he turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Elias was left standing, hands still shaking, although he wasn’t sure if it was the emotion or the alcohol. The room felt too small, too loud, even in the silence.

The car door outside snapped Elias out of the memory. The past scattered like embers kicked from a fire, leaving only the dull burn in his chest. He glanced at the monitor. Grainy footage, a figure stepping into the light. He knew that walk, that stance.

Elias stood, flexing his fingers out of habit, and stepped outside. Nathan was there, standing under the flickering streetlight, hands in his pockets, his badge catching slivers of light.

Elias had always figured there were only two choices. Graveyard or jail. That’s what they’d told him. That’s what the voice in his head had echoed back for years. But as he looked at Nathan—standing stiff, standing solid—he wondered if there was a third. The one where the law bent for certain people, in certain ways. The one where you got to walk away.

Nathan shook his head. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” His voice was tight, rough. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Elias exhaled slow, watching the smoke curl between them.

“Living the dream,” he said. “This a raid?”

Nathan didn’t look at him. Just glanced toward the building, then back at the pavement. “Few minutes.”

Elias nodded like that meant something. “And yet, here you are.”

Nathan didn’t answer.

“You going to tell me to go home,” Elias asked, voice quiet, almost amused. “Or tell me how the great Officer Graves can’t let this slide. How you’ve got to be the hero.”

Nathan’s eyes flicked back to him, something raw and unspoken brimming just beneath the surface. “Go home, Elias.”

“I knew how badly you wanted to be the hero, so I became the villain.” He stepped forward, just enough to push the tension between them tighter. “That’s how it was supposed to go, right?”

Nathan’s jaw tightened. “Most people here will get a warning.” His voice had softened, but the weight was still there.

“Most people?” Elias arched a brow.

Nathan’s throat worked around the words. “I’m pretty sure I’ll find some drugs inside.”

Elias smirked, the ghost of something between them rising up like smoke, like the taste of old promises left unsaid. He opened his mouth, a sharp remark ready to spill, but Nathan cut him off.

Nathan took a sharp step forward, close enough that Elias could smell the faint trace of aftershave beneath the scent of sweat and street air. “I know,” Nathan said, low and raw. “Don’t make me find it.”

Elias’ breath hitched. He swallowed it down.

Nathan exhaled through his nose. “Go home.”

Elias held his ground. His pulse was steady, but his ribs felt tight, like something was pulling him toward the man in front of him. Like maybe he wanted Nathan to grab him, shake him, shove him up against the brick and press their history between them until neither of them could breathe.

But Nathan wouldn’t. He never would. Not now.

Nathan’s fingers curled into fists, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Elias.” His voice was quieter now. “Go home.”

Elias took one last drag, slow and deliberate, then flicked the cigarette into the street. He didn’t say anything, just turned and walked away.

Nathan let him go; didn’t stop him either. Didn’t move.

The night stretched on, thick with things left unsaid, with touches never taken. Elias disappeared into the dark.

Nathan stood beneath the flickering streetlight, hands clenched, breath uneven.