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She dropped her hand. Took a step back. The distance felt like a wound, like she’d ripped something open by moving away, and I felt the loss of her presence like a physical ache.

“Nothing.” Her voice went cool and distant, the warmth disappearing so fast it gave me emotional whiplash. “Forget I said anything.”

“Carolina...”

She turned away, her red hair swinging like a curtain cutting me off from something I hadn’t realized I needed. I reached for her, my fingers brushing her sleeve, and she spun back to face me. We stood frozen, inches apart, the air between us vibrating with something I didn’t have a name for, something that made my skin feel too tight and my chest feel too full and my dead heart feel suddenly, terrifyingly alive.

“Trick or Treat?” she asked.

The question hung in the alley, charged and strange. I blinked. “What?”

“Trick or Treat,” she repeated, her eyes searching my face like she was looking for something specific, some answer I didn’t know I was supposed to give. “Choose.”

It was October. The bar had Halloween decorations up: plastic spiders, fake cobwebs, a cardboard skeleton grinning from the window. But this felt different. This felt like a test, like the question meant something deeper than candy and costumes, like whatever I said next would determine everything that came after.

I thought about tricks. About the way my life had become one long series of humiliations, pratfalls, and disasters. About how everything had gone to hell after my maker dumped me in Arrhythmia: the bad luck I couldn’t explain and the disasters I couldn’t outrun.

I thought about treats. About kindness. About the way Carolina had looked at me like I was real, like I mattered, like I was worth something despite all my broken pieces, or maybe because of them.

“Treat,” I said, because I was tired of tricks, tired of everything in my life going sideways, tired of being the punchline to a joke I didn’t understand.

Carolina smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Wrong choice.”

She snapped her fingers.

The sound cracked like thunder, and then she was gone. Just gone. Nothing but a swirl of red hair and the fading scent of jasmine and ozone. I stood alone in the alley, my hand still outstretched, my heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape, like it was trying to follow her.

“Carolina?” I called out, hoping she’d respond.

Nothing. Just the buzz of the neon sign and the distant hum of traffic and the empty space where she’d been standing, where something important had almost happened, where I’d almost had something I didn’t have words for.

I lowered my hand. Stared at the nothing in front of me. My chest ached, a hollow, hungry feeling I couldn’t explain, like someone had reached inside and taken something I hadn’t known I possessed.

I’d chosen wrong. I didn’t know how or why, but I’d chosen wrong, and now she was gone, and I was alone, and the only thing I knew for certain was that I had to find her again.

I turned and walked back toward the bar, my steps uneven, my mind racing. My boot caught on the threshold, and I pitched forward, barely catching myself against the doorframe.

Because apparently walking and thinking at the same time was too ambitious. Immortality, heightened senses, supernatural strength, yet I remained winless in my ongoing battle against absolutely nothing.

Inside, Dean looked up from polishing glasses. “Back so soon? Where’s the redhead?”

“Gone,” I said. The word came out hollow, far too small for everything it meant.

Dean raised an eyebrow but didn’t push. I slid onto my stool, reached for my abandoned beer, and stared at the alley door like she might walk back through it.

She didn’t.

But I sat there until last call anyway, waiting for a witch who’d vanished with a snap of her fingers, wondering what the hell had just happened and why I felt like I’d lost something I hadn’t known I was looking for.

Chapter Four

The morning after Carolina vanished, I woke with her name caught in my throat like a prayer I’d forgotten how to speak.

I’d barely slept. Vampires didn’t need much, but even by undead standards, dozing off after hours of staring at the ceiling qualified as a shitty night. I’d replayed every second of our encounter in the alley.

The jasmine and ozone of her scent. The way her fingers had hovered near my cheek as if she wanted to touch me. The snap of her fingers, the thundercrack of magic, and then nothing but empty air where she’d stood.

Wrong choice.