“No…no, that’s not true. Max isn’t dead, he isn’t, and he can’t be.” My palms pressed against the cold floor, as if I could brace myself against reality itself. “He called me, and we talked. I heard him laugh. He said he was coming home tomorrow. Damian, this…this is wrong. Something’s wrong. You’re wrong.” I cried, trying to bargain with the truth, because I knew in my bones, Damian wasn’t lying.
He didn’t speak, his breathing stuttered, like each inhale cut him open from the inside. When he finally forced out words, they scraped like gravel. “Forgive me.”
My stomach plunged. “For what?” He wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was turning toward the mirror, slowly, and reluctantly. “Damian, don’t…” My voice cracked as I lunged for his hand, but it was too late.
His body seized the way it had the night before. A violent jolt ran through him, and then another, and another, like invisible hands were yanking him out of himself. His spine arched, and his fingers clawed the air, then, his breath turned into choking sounds that had no human rhythm. I could hear my own heartbeat roaring, begging him, begging whatever was in that room to stop.
Then, just like last time, the change settled over him like a shadow pulling itself upright. His muscles went still, his head lifted, and his eyes went black. Silence swallowed the room whole.
“Damian…?” I whispered, but got nothing, not even a flicker, or a twitch.
Then the thought hit me, and it broke me even more, becauseI knew if I said it, it would be a confirmation of the truth I desperately wanted to be false. But I still did it; I went for the only name that came to mind.
“Max?” My voice cracked in the center, breaking open like an old wound.
The thing inside him looked at me slowly, so slowly it felt like time shook under its touch. Then, so soft, cracked, and unbearably familiar, it spoke through him. “Hey, troublemaker.”
The world collapsed in pieces, my breath vanished, and something inside my chest tore itself open so violently that a sob ripped out of me before I could hold it in. Because that was Max’s voice. My Max, my brother, and he was looking at me through the eyes of the man who had just broken for him.
Chapter Seventeen
Elena
“How?” The word ripped outof me in a raw, shredded panic. “Why did this happen? How? Max, how?” My questions tumbled over each other, spilling faster than I could breathe. “What happened to you? Why…” My voice collapsed in on itself as tears blurred everything. “You can’t be…not you. You just can’t be, please…”
Strong arms wrapped around me, and for the first time I felt something impossible: two griefs inside one body. Damian’s warmth, and Max’s cold tremor. Damian held me the way someone holds the only thing left in their world, tight enough to anchor me, gentle enough not to break me, but the voice that whispered against my hair was not his, that belonged to Max.
“I’m sorry, Elena.” His tone splintered. “I’m so damn sorry.”
I sobbed into Damian’s chest, but it was Max’s emotions pouring through him, Max’s choke, his guilt, his trembling confession pressing against my shoulder. When I looked up, one of Damian’s eyes dripped tears, warm and human. The other?Pitch dark, unblinking with sorrow. Max exhaled shakily, as though speaking felt like dragging a chain through his lungs.
“I died in my room,” he said. “The night before I was going to call you. I was finally ready to tell you everything. That I…” His voice faltered, cracked open, and crawled into something too vulnerable. “That I loved you, Elena, I loved you so much…more than a brother should. That I couldn’t pretend anymore, I just wanted to fix things between us.”
My knees buckled, and Damian…Max, pulled me closer.
“When I woke up,” he continued. “I was…I had…” I knew what he meant, and I didn’t want him to even say those words. “I was standing next to my own body, I could see myself unmoving, lifeless. Then, he was there too, death, or something wearing the idea of him.” His pitch-black eye twitched, like remembering the deal scraped him from the inside. “He offered me a choice, where I could fade, or I could find you. Help you to not blame yourself, help you find peace, move on. So, I agreed.”
My breath hitched because the story wasn’t done. I could feel it crawling toward the darker part.
“But,” he whispered. “I didn’t understand the price, didn’t see what else came with the deal. Something attached itself to me, feeding on all the things I tried to bury. The desire I shouldn’t have felt for you, the fantasies I hated myself for. It magnified it, twisted it, and turned it into hunger.” He shuddered through Damian’s bones. “Your fear…God, El, your fear was like a drug. I didn’t want it, but I couldn’t stop it either. That thing inside me…” His voice lowered into something ashamed and monstrous. “It wanted to ruin you, break you, in all the ways I never let myself imagine when I was alive.”
I covered my mouth as a sob tore its way out of me, shaking my whole body, but he held me tighter, the eye that wasn’t completely black looked at me, and I knew Damian was here too, because I wanted him to be.
“I brought you to this house,” he confessed softly. “Not to hurt you, I swear. I was trying to find Damian. Because I knew he was the only one who could anchor me long enough for you to hear me, and you did. But the spell…” His shoulders tightened. “It went wrong when he looked into the mirror, and…you know.”
“I don’t understand,” I cried. “If you’re dead…if you’ve been dead…how come no one called me? No one told me anything. Max, are you still alone?”
A broken laugh escaped him, a painful, hollow sound. “No, El. I’m at the morgue. The calls will come.” He swallowed hard. “Being in this house now…it places you outside the loop of life. Out of the world’s reach, everything that was supposed to happen waits until I leave.”
My heart split, bleeding memories. “Max…why did you disappear after our parents died? Why didn’t you stay? Why…?”
“I couldn’t face you,” he said, his voice cracking, then he sighed. “I am sorry I did, I truly am.”
I cried harder, clutching Damian’s shirt like it was Max’s soul in my hands. “And the calls,” I whispered. “How did you call me? How did you reach me?”
He inhaled shakily, and when he spoke again, it was more intimate than anything he’d admitted. “The dagger. The one I bought you? I felt it when you tried to end it all, it was two days after I had died, before someone even found me. Your blood… mixed with the metal…it somehow opened a pathway. Just a few seconds at a time, but enough for my voice to slip through. I didn’t want you to hurt yourself, El, but it was the only crack in the world big enough to reach you.”
My tears were relentless, falling so hard they dampened Damian’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I cried. “For everything, for not calling more, for being distant, for shutting you out.”
