“Okay, Marshal.”
With a low bow, he whisked around, the door shutting behind him as he left.
I grabbed my phone from the table and left the office, crossing the hall to my suite. I went straight to the drawer beside my bed, pulled it open and retrieved the brown journal hidden inside it.
Flipping to the page marked with ink, I scanned the entry. The last time I’d written was last night. I hadn’t documented anything today.
I sank onto the side of the bed, placing the journal on my lap. I uncapped the pen and began to write.
I had felt the weight of Zaghan’s presence for days now, hovering at the edges of my mind, scratching, grunting, pressing. He was ready to slip out. But I wasn’t ready to let go.
I planned to hold him off until I couldn’t anymore. I hoped to have more days left to fight. Because I wasn’t ready to disappear without giving Elizabeth closure.
If only I could just come out to her with the truth, begged for her to understand me. If I could just tell her what it was, that sometimes I disappeared and let my twin brother take over my body, maybe she wouldn’t think I was crazy and leave me. Maybe she would be so sweet and understand that I had no choice.
I wanted to be transparent with her. I needed her to accept me without all my secrets. But I was scared. I wasn’t ready to face a reality where she stopped being mine.
I couldn’t tell her yet. So I wanted to hold Zaghan off a little longer. I wasn’t ready to disappear on my girl. Until then, until he would finally rip through my skull and take over, I needed a record. Everything that had happened since the last time he was in control. Every step I had taken. Every mistake.
This was how it always worked. How slipping between bodies had been made seamless. No one needed to know that two souls occupied this body. No one could suspect that I was fractured, that sometimes, pieces of my memory went missing. So I wrote it all down. Every step I took since the ledger went missing. Every decision I had made, everything I learned and unlearned. Every secret I had cracked. When my brother would finally take over, he would know what I had done, where I had stopped, what plans I made and what I was hoping to achieve.
Same courtesy applied when roles were reversed. Although I’d love to not have to open the journal every time he was last in control to find a detailed explanation on how his midnight hunting went. How he butchered an innocent person, how their scream of terror tore through the quiet night.
The ledger clearly wouldn’t be found today. If he eventually took over, he needed to know he had a lot of work to do. I did hope that he would succeed where I had failed. That he would find a lead that didn’t dissolve into nothing.
I snapped the journal shut, slid it back into the drawer and stood, exiting the room.
My other phone vibrated the moment I stepped into the corridor
I ignored it.
Another step. Another vibration, longer this time. I stepped into the elevator, dug my hand into my left pocket, fishing out the phone. I lifted it to check the screen.
Her name glowed across it.
For a moment I just stared at it, irritation flaring sharp and hot. Not at her. No, never her. It was at the timing, at the world, at everything trying to pull me in the opposite directions. Away from her.
My fingers slid across the screen, and I took the phone to my ear.
“You’re late,” she said. She didn’t sound angry. At least I didn’t think she was. Maybe tired?
I closed my eyes briefly, cracking them open when the elevator dinged and the doors split apart.
“I know.” I stepped out, barely acknowledging the soldier stationed right outside it.
“You were supposed to be here.”
“I meant to.”
There was a pause.
“You have been meaning to for four days, Callan,” she accused. She was angry. She called me by my name. She always ceased to call me Snow White when she was mad at me.
“I’m sorry.” I felt a twisting in my chest. “Something came up.”
I heard her exhale a tired sigh. “Something always comes up,” she mumbled. “I reminded you yesterday. And the day before. It’s just a movie date. Just two hours of your time. It’s not a big deal.”
“I didn’t forget, Elizabeth. I promise.”
