And I collapsed in the silence he left behind, still wrapped in the echo of his fury.
Chapter 46
Alina
Istumbled into the antique store—mine and Jack’s—barely able to stay upright. I didn’t glance at the staircase leading to our apartment above. I couldn’t. That part of my life felt miles away, unreachable.
The door creaked shut behind me with a finality that echoed in my bones.
Desperation clawed at my throat with every step I took. Shadows seemed to cluster in the corners, thick and unnatural, pressing inward until the walls themselves tightened, corralling me into a prison of my own. No matter how I turned, it felt like I was walking into dead ends. Into failure.
My gaze landed on the glass case filled with old pocket watches—delicate, ticking relics frozen in time. I stared blankly, unable to see them as anything more than ghosts of a world that no longer made sense. Each tick seemed to mock me, a rhythm without meaning.
A dense fog of despair seeped into my chest, curling around my ribs and squeezing. I stood there, motionless, as if my limbs had turned to stone. The store was silent, but my mind screamed with images—flames, snakes, choking hands, and Lazarus’ voice slithering through my skull.
I pressed both palms against the counter to ground myself in something real. But even the glass felt cold and alien beneath mytouch. Once filled with curiosity and nostalgia, this place now pulsed with dread. Every artifact was just another reminder that the past had claws, dragging me under.
I closed my eyes, wishing for silence inside my head.
But there was no escape.
Just the ticking.
And the shadows.
And the weight of everything I could no longer control.
The bell above the door jangled, piercing the stillness.
I barely looked up. Just another customer, I told myself. Just another body drifting through the wreckage.
Then a sound—wet and deliberate—the clearing of a throat.
I blinked and found an elderly woman standing at the counter. She stared at me with eyes like storm glass—murky, knowing, impossible to read. She clutched a brown paper sack to her chest as though it held something sacred or damning. The scent of burnt herbs and old dirt clung to her like a warning.
“Can I help you?” I asked, voice brittle.
She smiled, cracked and crooked. “Oh, Icertainlyhope so.”
She reached into the bag and produced a porcelain doll.
My breath hitched the moment she set it down.
It wore a tattered, blood-red cloak. The hood framed a melting face—features grotesquely smeared, like someone had screamed through the clay as it hardened. Greasy black hair spilled from beneath the hood. The skin was a nauseating patchwork of pallid white and smeared grime.
But the eyes. Theeyes.
They were unnatural. Fixed on me. Intelligent. Malevolent.
I reached for my reading glasses, sitting crooked on the counter, and slid them on to get a better look. Then I picked up the doll.
The world dimmed around me as I took it in my hands. My stomach knotted. Something about this doll felt alive, watching me, evenjudgingme.
And then?—
The front door burst open behind me.
“There was a man outside!” Olivia cried, her voice concerned, laced with panic. “He was just standing there, watching the store!”
