“My mom got sick once. Really sick.” His voice had gone hoarse. “The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She was in the hospital for a week, and they kept running tests, but nothing made sense. Nothing worked. She was dying, and I couldn’t—I didn’t—” He broke off, breathing hard. “There was something he’d asked me to do. Something I’d been putting off because it felt wrong. I did it.” Zane’s hands were shaking again. “She was fine the next day. Just...fine. Like nothing had happened. The doctors called it a miracle.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. I could hear the old house settling around us, creaks and groans that usually faded into background noise but now seemed deafening.
“He was conditioning you,” Eric said quietly.
“I know that now. But I was a kid, and I wanted a dad. Especially after Mom was killed. I was fourteen. Car accident. That’s when I got really tight with Sam—that’s what he called himself as my dad.”
He dragged his fingers through his hair. “I should have figured it out by then. It shouldn’t have been so easy for a kid to keep an apartment. I never had a clue, though.”
“Convenient,” Eddie muttered. “Do whatever Daddy wants and blame it on manipulation.”
“Eddie,” I warned.
“No, he’s right.” Zane’s voice was steady now, steadier than it had any right to be. “It is convenient. It’s also true. Both things can be real at the same time.”
Zane met my eyes for the first time since his confession had started. What I saw there wasn’t defiance or excuses or even hope. It was pure, unvarnished self-loathing.
“I didn’t know what he was. I thought maybe he was in the mob, or some kind of secret society. And I told myself the stuff he asked me to do wasn’t that bad. I mean, I never hurt anyone—or at least, I don’t think it did. And he told me about the good things he did. About how he could save lives. How he could heal.”
I stiffened, thinking about Eric and the rite that had saved me.
“I told myself he was some kind of immortal protector,” Zane continued. “Some awesome guy getting down and dirty in disguise as he worked behind the scenes to fight evil.” His voice cracked. “How pathetic is that? A teenager still believing in fairy tales.”
I thought about Allie. About how badly she’d wanted to believe the best of people, even when the evidence pointed elsewhere. About how easy it was, when you were young anddesperate and lonely, to believe in simple narratives. Good guys and bad guys. Heroes and villains. Fathers who loved you.
“Not pathetic,” I said, and the words surprised me. “Human.”
Zane looked at me like I’d spoken a foreign language. Like kindness was the last thing he’d expected—and the one thing he couldn’t handle.
He managed a small smile, then nodded. “He disappeared almost two years ago,” he said, the timeline matching when Allie had closed the gate. “And even though I’d told myself he was this noble guy, I was secretly relieved. I wanted him gone.”
He sucked in a breath. “But now he wants out. Wherever he’s stuck, he’s managed to get little bits out. Just thoughts, maybe telepathy. I don’t know. But he talks to me. Not often, but he does.”
“He told you how to open the portal.”
He nodded, looking even more miserable.
“Trevor,” Eric said, and the name landed between us like a blade.
Zane’s whole body contracted. Shoulders curving in, head dropping, arms wrapping around himself like he could physically hold himself together. When he spoke, his voice was wrecked.
“Sam told me to mark him. Said the boy needed to be marked. For later.” His hands came up, pressing against his face, and his next words were muffled, broken. “I didn’t know what it meant. I thought it was protection, maybe. Or—I don’t know.”
His voice cracked completely. He stood there, this kid who’d walked into our school with easy confidence and a charming smile, and he shattered in front of us.
“I didn’t know it would kill him. I swear to God, I didn’t know his blood would open—that he would—that I was?—”
He couldn’t finish. Silent sobs wracked his body, and he pressed his hands harder against his face like he could push the grief back inside.
“Bullshit.” Eddie’s voice was hard. “You expect us to believe that load of horseshit?”
“I believe him.”
Everyone turned to look at Eric. He’d been silent since Zane started talking about Trevor, his face unreadable. But now he stepped forward. “I know what it’s like,” Eric said, his voice low. “To have something inside you that you didn’t ask for. Something that makes you do things you don’t understand. Things you can’t stop.”
Zane stared at him.
Eric turned to look at me and Allie. “You both saw what I did when that fucker got unbound inside me. I was horrible, and most horrible of all to both of you.”
