The men follow, but keep their distance.
“Skye,” Talon says finally, his voice softer now, palms open in that half-defensive, half-comforting way he does. “Hey. It’s okay if you couldn’t do it. The first one’s always rough. It gets inside your head. If you didn’t go through with it, that doesn’t make you—”
I whirl on him.
“I didn’t,” I snap, and he flinches because my voice could strip paint right now. I shove my hands into my hair, then tear them out again because my scalp feels like it’s burning. “I didn’t, but not because I didn’t want to.”
I was ready for it.
I knew what I had to do. I’d already made peace with it, or at least tried to.
And listen, I don’t mean to sound completely unhinged, but I’m kind of losing it here. I had a plan. Things were finally lining up. I thought, Okay, this is it. Closure. Clean break. Chapter ends, story done. But apparently the universe had other ideas.
The three of them freeze at once.
“What happened?” Nathaniel asks quietly. “Tell us.”
I breathe in, and it hurts.
I should tell them. We’re in this together now, whether I like it or not. Still, the words feel jagged on the way out.
“The void,” I say, and watch the word land. “Death.”
Cassian’s jaw flexes once, a flash of rage he barely keeps contained.
“He dragged me in,” I manage. “Like I was nothing. He just reached out and pulled me through, tossed me around like something he owns. And then he told me…” I let out a short, humorless laugh. “I can’t use my Reaper powers. Not to reap, not to cut, not to stitch, not to call, not to pull. None of it. Not until I mend the split.”
Nathaniel frowns. “The split?”
I swallow hard. “Until I merge with Pain. Become one again.”
Talon’s expression flickers between confusion, disbelief, and anger. “What? That’s insane.”
“Yes,” Nathaniel says quietly. “You should have every right to act on your own terms. That was the entire point of all this.”
Cassian studies me. “Are you hurt?”
I start to say no, but the word won’t come. “Yes,” I admit. “Not in a way you can stitch. It feels like the power is completely gone. Not like before when it was simply out of reach. There’s… nothing there.”
I start pacing because standing still feels unbearable.
Talon follows, keeping a few steps behind. “Hey,” he says softly. “We’ll figure it out, Skye.”
“How?” I turn to him. “We all know what’s coming next.”
Cassian exhales slowly. He glances at Nathaniel. “The wraiths.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice rising. “The wraiths. We have twelve volatile souls in boxes, and a god who just put child locks on my everything. He expects me to stop the apocalypse without the one thing that made me capable of it.”
Nathaniel shakes his head. “That isn’t just unfair. It’s reckless.”
Talon lets out a dry laugh that doesn’t sound amused. “Unfair? She’s an innocent soul shoved into post-mortem labor, and her boss just said, ‘No powers, fix your trauma, and save the world.’ That’s not unfair, that’s divine cruelty.”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, though even I can hear how false it sounds. “I’m fine, I just—”
The generator hum deepens, then steadies. Outside the high windows, something shifts in the air. A dark ripple moves through the sky, breaking apart and reforming. The hair on my arms stands on end.
All three men turn toward the glass.
