The porch light buzzed low, casting a hazy yellow glow over the peeling white boards of your front steps. Night clung to the trees like smoke, thick and restless, and the sound came again — that slow, aching twang of a banjo.

You didn’t have to look. You knew who it was.

Remmick.

He sat cross-legged on the old tree stump at the edge of your yard like he’d always belonged to the wild and the dirt. Hat pulled low, shadowing eyes you once swore you knew better than your own reflection. But now? That man wasn’t quite the same. Pale as moonbone, still as death, and yet somehow… more alive than he’d ever been.

His fingers danced slow over the strings, lazy and mournful. And then he sang, voice low and drawlin’ like syrup off the edge of a spoon:

“Darlin’, I done wrong, I know that clear, Left with blood on my hands an’ dust in my beard, But the night calls sweeter than the life I knew, An’ I came back hungry… but mostly for you.”

You opened the door just a crack. Enough to see him, not enough to let him in.

“Go home, Remmick,” you said. Your voice didn’t shake. Not out loud.

He looked up slow, grin carved lazy and cold across his face. “Ain’t got one, sugar. Not since I gave my soul to somethin’ darker than my sins.”

“You gave more than your soul,” you muttered. “You gave us.”

The banjo silenced, fingers stillin’ mid-note.

“Thought ’bout you every damn sunset,” he said. “Truth is, I ain’t been able to stop. You… you kept me human longer than I deserved.”

His eyes caught the porch light just enough to shine — not soft like they used to, but sharp, glassy. Hungry.

You stepped back. “You need to leave.”

“I cain’t,” he whispered. “Not ’til you invite me in, even just for a little while. I swear I won’t bite, not unless you ask real nice.”

He grinned wider at that.