I sway on my feet, holding the dagger tight. It hums in time with my pulse. My body shakes. I’m bleeding from my shoulder, but I don’t care.
I’m done running. Done being afraid of what I’ve been through.
“It’s a lot, huh?” I say, stepping toward her as her form spasms. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”
She tries to vanish, tries to flicker out into shadow, but I don’t let her. I grab hold of the tether between us, yanking it like a leash.
It strains.
I push harder.
So hard I have to grip the dagger with both hands and force out the last of its power.
Her scream rises.
Her voice cuts through the noise. Desperate. Ugly. “Make it stop.”
“No,” I whisper. “Not until you take every last piece.”
The tether twists.
Then snaps.
Her scream vanishes with her. There is no grand explosion, no cosmic shatter. Just a tear in space where she hovered, like she was never meant to exist. Like this was what Death wanted me to understand all along.
Not how to kill her.
How to starve her.
Feed her something she couldn’t hold.
I drop to my knees.
The dagger clatters to the ground beside me, my fingers too numb to keep holding it.
I’ve been tired before, but this… this is different.
There’s nothing left in me.
And that’s when I hear the front doors creak open downstairs. A moment later, two figures appear behind me—Nathaniel and Talon.
One of them picks up the dagger from the floor. The other crouches down and lifts me up gently.
I look at them. My lips part—to say she’s gone, or I’m okay, or I did it—but nothing comes out.
Then I see the teenager. He’s with them too.
And the way he looks at me…
He knows.
His eyes shimmer, like candlelight.
“It’s all okay now,” he says.
And I don’t know why, but somehow…
That makes it all feel worth it.
