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I need her.

I can hardly ignore the feelings any longer, especially now that I might never get the chance to express them. Not that I’d even know how to fucking do that. I’ve spent so long being alone, and I’m not entirely sure I could even give Lydia what she needs—what she deserves. That sure as shit won’t stop me from trying, though. I can no longer ignore this magnetic pull into her orbit, no matter how fucking hard I resist.

I stand once more, taking off down the hallway toward the first door on my left. My hand moves in slow motion as I reach for the knob. Before I can turn it, a sound filters through speakers somewhere overhead, and I’m brought to my knees. The sound is familiar as I strain to listen better. It takes me seconds to realize where I’ve heard it before—the music box.

My control wavers as my mind begins to slip from my grasp. I try to hold on, to fight it, but it’s too much. My hands cover my ears in an attempt to suffocate the feeling of my brain being ripped apart and rearranged. It’s all too fucking much.

“Callum.” I hear a voice.

The voice is female and … familiar. But it can’t be, because she’s dead. I killed her. I turn toward the sound, coming face-to-face with nothing but the darkness that’s always surrounded me. The fear entwines itself around me, skittering down my spine and making a home beneath the vertebrae.

“Callum, it’s me. It’s okay, I’m here,” the voice says again, closer now.

I spin around, searching for the ghost that still haunts my nightmares. But once again, I’m faced with nothing.

“Kaila?” I ask, my voice cracking as tears threaten to fall.

“No. Try again,” a voice growls from my left.

This time, it’s male. Dorian. I turn my head sharply, only to meet the darkness once more. What the fuck is going on?

“You’re nothing. You’re pathetic and useless. After I’m done with you, no one will ever want you.”

Female, again. Sabel. I hear the words like a whisper against my skin. The voice threatens to resurface all the memories I fought so fucking hard to suppress.

“You know you want to. You know you want me as badly as I’ve always wanted you,” Sabel’s voice whispers against the shell of my ear, and I swallow the bile that surfaces as fast as the fucking memories.

I toss my head back, screaming out into the darkness. “Get out of my head!”

I have to fight. This isn’t real. None of this is fucking real.

“No one will want you once I’m done with you. You’re worthless. You’re nothing,” Sabel’s voice echoes around me once more, and I can feel the darkness closing in.

No, you have to fight. She can’t hurt you anymore. She isn’t real.

I turn my head toward the sound, ready to kill her a second time if I have to. But she isn’t there. No one is there. I squeeze my eyes shut, bringing my head down toward the floor as a hoarse scream escapes my throat. Within seconds, I’m spiraling, no … falling. The floor seems to give way beneath me.

Is this the end? Is it finally over? I relax, imagining a time and place devoid of ghosts from the past, and filled only with the blue eyes of a beautiful siren.

I need to find her.

I see Lydia’s face so clearly now, as if she’s here with me. I’m falling, drifting through the ether with her right in front of me. Her dark hair floats around her, her smile brightening when she spots me. I watch like a third-party viewer as we continue to free-fall on an invisible pillow of air.

I smile back at her with a light in my eyes that I haven’t seen since Kaila was alive. Lydia laughs, the sound so wild and carefree that it nearly frees me from the cage I’ve spent years building. She is so breathtaking, so inherently good that it fucking hurts.

But none of it matters, because this isn’t real.

The vision before me blurs around the edges, and suddenly we begin to fall faster. Lydia reaches for me, fear contorting her features as she barrels toward the chasm below. We fall and fall, for what feels like an eternity. I struggle to grab her hand, my fingers brushing hers for only the briefest of seconds before she’s sucked away from me.

“No!” I scream out into the void, willing someone to help her.

But no one does, and she falls and falls until she disappears entirely, taken from my grasp like she was never even there.

23

Lydia

I am going to be murdered by a psycho in a mask.