He exhaled a slow plume of smoke, watching his twin brother, Callan, through the curling tendrils.
Callan didn’t respond to Zaghan right away. But his eyes, dark and rimmed with exhaustion, remain fixed on his brother from across the dimly lit room.
Shadows pulled in the corners, thick like oil, pressing in.
“I know,” Callan finally murmured, his voice raw and drained.
Zaghan shifted against the chair he was sitting on, stretching his limbs with lazy amusement, the cigarette still clenched between his lips, the chains that still held him down chinking. “Give me control.” Another exhale of smoke, deliberate and taunting. He knew how much Callan hated the scent, the way it seeped into everything, suffocating. The disease it could cause.
“No.” Callan’s answer to his request was curt and clipped.
Zaghan’s jaw tensed. “At this rate, you’re going to work yourself to death.”
Callan dragged a hand down his face, the weight of exhaustion clinging to him like wet clothes. “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to die.”
Zaghan stilled at the careless way his brother was throwing around the idea of dying. The smile on his face faded, but only slightly.
“Well, I do not want you to die, Callan.” Something bitter and curdled festered beneath Zaghan’s voice. “I can not possess a fucking dead body.”
Callan didn’t argue. Because it was true. He was the reason Zaghan existed only in the periphery, a phantom caged inside his mind. If not for him, Zaghan would have been born whole, with his own flesh, his own body, his own will. Instead, he was trapped, a parasite without a host, a shadow without a shape of its own.
“What are you afraid of, brother?” Zaghan asked. “That you’d rather work yourself to the brink than let me out for a moment?”
Callan shifted his gaze to his brother, something cold flickering in it. “You.” A pause. Then, quieter, but heavy with meaning. “Because the moment you sensed her, you saw a prey. And she’s no prey, Zaghan. She’s not a game for you to hunt, not another body for you to carve into. I won’t let you touch her. She’s not yours. She’s mine.”
Zaghan’s smile vanished entirely, his jaw pulled taut.
Her.
The reason he had been caged unfairly was her. That fragile little thing.
Zaghan’s fingers twitched against his thigh, nails pressing into his skin. He had suspected it before, but hearing Callan confirm it sent something venomous slithering through his gut. Who the hell was this girl? Where did she come from? What gave her the right to interfere in his existence?
He wanted to find her. Tear her apart just to see what made her so special. Just to see what would break first, her mind or her body.
“So, you’re denying me my right because of her?” His voice was low, edged with something sharp.
Callan scoffed, brow lifted. “Your right?” His head tilted back against the couch, his lid heavy. “Since when did borrowing my body become your right?”
“Since you turned me into a ghost with no flesh?” Zaghan’s words were laced with venom, years of suppressed rage and grudge. “Since you killed me before I even had a chance to be born.”
Callan exhaled through his nose, threading his fingers through his hair in frustration. “For how long are you going to keep using this against me, Zaghan?”
Zaghan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, cigarette burning between his fingers. “For as long as I don’t have a flesh of my own.”
Silence stretched between the two brothers, thick with tension and the acrid scent of smoke.
Zaghan broke it first. “I’m tired of being locked away.” His voice was softer, but no less dangerous. “I need to stretch. I need to hunt. And most of all, I need to help you look for the ledger, since you clearly haven’t figured out a way. And I can’t do thiswithout a fucking body, so why don’t you quit being stubborn and let me have control?”
Callan let his head roll to the side, observing his ever deceptive brother with deadened eyes. “I’m not giving you control, Zaghan. Not anytime soon, actually.”
Zaghan inhaled sharply, jaw working. Callan may be weak-minded, easily manipulated. But it was no lie that he was also a very stubborn fellow. And whatever spell the girl had cast on him was quite strong. He would not break easily at this point. Not with a brute force, at least.
“I won’t touch her,” Zaghan said smoothly. But it was a lie. He would touch her. He would break her. That fragile thing that interrupted his existence? Oh, he would kill her.
“Since when have you ever done what I wanted, Zaghan?”
Zaghan smirked. “Since I became desperate.” He stubbed out his cigarette, crushing the embers on the glass coffee table. “I’m giving you my word, now. I won’t touch her. I won’t go looking for her. I won’t even think about her.”
