The world has always been cruel. It always will be. There will always be people who twist love into power, who take what they want because they can. You cannot stop that. It’s just the way it is.
But cruelty only wins when you let it stay. When you let it take root and become the story you tell yourself.
I was never powerless. I was hurt, but I wasneverpowerless.
I could have looked away. I could have healed instead of circling the wound. I could have—
Something snaps inside my chest with a white, metallic pop, like biting into foil. The world tilts. The seam slams shut on the part of him I have drawn out and traps it like a finger caught in a door.
Mark exhales. His head tips back. The straps creak. The ribbon of breath slides another inch, another heartbeat.
I don’t take his soul.
I fail.
Then everything goes dark.
And I am no longer in the basement.
The void.
There’s no escaping it, is there? Every once in a while, it just has to pull me back in. Like a black hole designed specifically for me.
I’m starting to hate this place.
Even more when I feelhimhere.
“Skye,” Death says.
I wish I could curl up and disappear. Too many things churn inside me. None of them are appropriate for a conversation with him. Especially when he’s here to scold me.
And I know he is.
“Yes,” he says, voice smooth and booming. “For once, your instinct is correct.”
I swallow. Or… imagine I do. The habit makes my phantom throat ache.
“Hi,” I say slowly. “So, uh—”
The void tightens around me.
“Do not test me with pleasantries,” he says.
“I wasn’t—” I start.
“You attempted to reap with a fractured soul,” he says, the word fractured ringing through the dark like a struck bell. “You tried to sever a life that has not reached its terminus. You reached for a thread that was not yours to cut.”
A spike of cold runs through me. “Mark’s time—”
“Has not come.” No hesitation, no mercy. “You abused the powers I entrusted to you.”
I go still.
He’s right. I did.
But Mark and I aren’t black and white. I’m his victim. If I waited for him to die naturally, I could judge him in the afterlife. But I wanted justicenow. And I chose to kill him.
I press my back against nothing; the instinct to brace is so strong my phantom muscles tremble.
