Evan walks into the foyer and steps around the shattered chandelier at the bottom of the stairway. The walls are cracked, some even knocked out, and there are massive holes in the floor. The banister has been knocked down, the paintings, lamps, furniture—demolished. Strangely, the mirror on the wall is still intact and I wonder if the violet eyes staring back at me will be the same one’s I see in my next life. Will I still be the same person? Will I even remember any of this?
Evan easily jumps to the second step of the stairway, the bottom one missing. Then, he extends his hand to me and I take it, letting him pull me over the hole in the floor and place me down beside him. We make our way up the stairs and, when we reach the top, I let out a quiet gasp at the missing ceiling. Evan ignores the mess and continues through it, ducking beneath the caved-in areas and stepping over the debris.
He keeps going, without saying a word, until we reach where he’s been sleeping over the last few weeks. He lifts a dresser lying flat on the floor and pushes it upright. He pulls the top drawer open and, reaching inside it, he retrieves a gold-plated pocket watch that hangs from a golden chain. It dawns on me how many times I’ve seen him fiddling with the chain.
“You’ve had that the whole time?” I ask, reaching for it.
He turns to the side, moving out of my reach as he runs his thumb along an inscription in the back—to keep track of time. “Yeah, like I’m going to leave it around for someone to get ahold of. Do you know how many people would love to get a hold of this?”
I could name about a thousand names; including Helena, Lucinda and Stephan. I wouldn’t even put it past Sophia to seek it out, in the hopes of saving Marco.
I let out a breath. “So that’s it? That’s what’s going to change life as we know it?”
He nods, looking at me warily. “I think I should tell you one more thing—I feel like I have to.”
I prepare myself for the worst because it’s always best to be prepared. “Okay, hit me with it.”
The corners of his lips quirk. “If you manage to do this… to reset time, you probably won’t remember anything.” He gestures at the room and then touches the star on my inner wrist.
It rushes through me, like razor sharp poison, jagged edges catching my skin, tearing me apart on the inside. Everything. Every blissful moment. Every promise. Every kiss. Hug. Word. Touch. Breath. Every single second I’ve spent with him, will be gone. I won’t know it.
Tears start to fall from my eyes as I grasp the entire situation of what I’m about to do.
“Gemma, I—” he starts, but the sound of a voice cuts him off.
“I know you’re in here, Evan.”
“Is that Alex?” I whisper and then I turn, starting to run towards the sound of his voice.
“Come out and play!” Alex yells and then lets out a cackling laugh.
Evan snags the back of my shirt and yanks me back. “Wait a second. That sounds like Alex, but it might not be.”
“Of course, it’s him,” I say, trying to pry his fingers off my shirt. I need to go to him, feel him, know that everything I thought was just a lie. “It sounds just like him.” I pinch his fingers hard, but he refuses to release me. “Would you let me go?”
He shakes his head sharply. “Stay here and I’ll go check… we need to make sure he’s not… he’s not a Lord.”
It nearly kills me to do it, the need to be near him so consuming, it’s maddening. “Hurry.”
Before he leaves he grabs my hand and places the watch into my palm. “Just in case.”
I close my hand around the cold metal. “But what about your power? Don’t I need it?”
Evan closes his eyes and places a hand on each of my cheeks. I don’t breathe as a warm sensation spills over my body and floods through my veins like hot wax. My adrenaline surges, thudding through my body powerfully as my skin begins to crawl. Without moving my head, I look down at my arms and hands, turning them over with my mouth open in awe.
My pale skin is covered in lines, shapes, intricate patterns that create mark after mark; all connected, yet, all separate at the same time. They glow in different colors; blue, purple, violet, green, even black. “It’s amazing,” I whisper.
Evan lowers his hands from my face, rolls up his sleeves, and turns his arms over. His once marked skin is now bare, like freshly fallen snow. Sighing, he rolls his sleeves back down. “It’s weird, but I actually kind of miss them.”
I trace my finger along a spirally mark on the back of my hand. “So that’s it?”
He nods, backing for the door. “That’s it.”
I step forward and grab his arm. “Wait, you can’t protect yourself now. If Alex is a Lord…” I think of my vision and Alex standing over our bodies. “He might hurt you.”
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. When you reset time, I can be alive or dead and it doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I mutter under my breath, gripping the watch in my hand as I watch him walk away. When he reaches the doorway, he turns and doesn’t look back as he disappears into the hallway.
“Well, well, there you are,” I hear Alex say and deep down in my heart, I know it’s not him. He’s gone. Alex is gone.
I inch around large pieces of collapsed ceiling and stop near the doorway, needing to see him one last time. I take a deep breath and, pressing my back against the wall, I peek around the corner.
Over the balcony, I spot Alex in the foyer. He’s dressed in black, his hair is slicked back, looking greasy, and his nails are even painted black. He looks just like the Alex from my vision, his expression equally as cold.
Evan is keeping his distance, staying in the middle of the stairway with his arms tucked to his sides. “Dude, what the hell happened to you?” Evan asks, eyeing him over.
Alex stares at him blankly. “I should be asking you the same thing.” He takes a step forward, winding around the broken chandelier. “Did you seriously just give up your powers?”
Evan’s jaw drops. “What? I didn’t.”
Alex’s taps the back of his hand as he reaches the bottom of the stairway. “Then, where did they go?”
Evan raises his bare hand in front of him, turning it over. “I didn’t,” is all he says.
Alex’s lips curl into a grin and his once green eyes are like coals. Raising his hands, he claps them together and I watch in horror as mummified bodies creep out from the holes in the floors, drop down from the roof, the doorways, they even barrel clumsily in through the broken windows. Dragging their legs, they enclose around Evan and the last thing I hear from him is a painful scream.
I start to turn away, shaking in fear, when Alex’s eyes lock on me. I expect him to shout, order them to take me out, but all he does is smile. Shaking my head, I whirl to run, holding the watch, ready to do what I have to do, but when I turn around, I slam into something rock hard.
I push away, but fingers dig into my wrist, tugging me closer.
“Well hello, beautiful.” Alex tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear, his head tilted as he assesses me with his chilled eyes. He breathes in deep, briefly shutting his eyes. “Your scent… your soul is intoxicating.” His eyes open and a grin curves at his lips.
“It’s your soul, too,” I say, trying to wrench away. “You and I share each other’s, in case you can’t remember.”
His gaze rises to the ceiling as he thinks about what I said. “I’m pretty sure I don’t have a soul.” His eyes move back to me. “But I can’t wait to take yours.”
“Oh, pretty please, let me play with her first.” The Banshee, who I’ve seen in my dreams—visions—many times, emerges from the end of the hallway. She’s wearing a tight dress and her hair flows down her shoulders. She struts up to me and runs her nails along my cheek. “Pretty please.”
Alex sighs. “Give me a minute and you can do whatever you want with her… but I want to do this one alone.”
She pouts. “But you promised I could play.”
“I know, beautiful, but…” He looks at me. “I really, really want this one.”
A gagging noise escapes my throat as I dry heave. “Seriously? Beautiful? Oh my God, that’s disgusting.”
She shoots me a cold, hard stare and raises her hand to slap me, but quicker than my eye can register, Alex knocks her to the ground and then his hands are back on me. The Banshee is out cold as he backs me down the hall until I hit the wall.
He studies me forever with a perplexed look on his face and then he licks his lips. “I think I’m going to really enjoy this.”
Shaking my head, tears start to slip from my eyes. I hate the look in his eyes—hate seeing him like this. “Alex, it’s me, Gemma. You… you don’t want to do this. You love me.”
His forehead creases and then he sputters a laugh. “Love? Seriously, love’s a bunch of bullshit.” He sighs and then leans in, presses his body against mine. “It was a nice try, though. The best I’ve seen.” He places a hand on my neck with a smile on his face. “I do feel a little bad, if that makes you feel better.” His nails dig into my skin and I feel it rupture. Blood spills out as my bones threaten to crack. His muscles tighten as he strangles me harder, his brows furrowing when I don’t fight back.
I can’t fight back. There’s no fight left in me. I wonder if he can feel it. He said he started to feel and see the things I saw. I wonder if he feels my love and knows that all I see is him.
“What’s wrong with you?” He growls, loosening his grip, then tightening it again, like he’s conflicted on whether to strangling me or not. “Don’t you want to try and live?”
I don’t move. In fact, I hold my own breath as my blood trails down his arms. Death consumes me, owns me, starts to drag me away, and right when I’m on the verge of taking my last breath, I whisper through my tears, “I’m sorry.”
I’ll never know if he would have finished me off or if his confliction would have won him over. I’ll never know how strong our love is because, if he did kill me, it’s the end. There’d be nothing.
I summon a deep breath and then I let the power flow from my body, the one that kills, not wounds, because I don’t want to mess it up. I let the poison slip through my skin and enter him, coat him with death, steal his air. I kill him. I take his life, sobbing, my heart dying with him.
Gasping, he lets go of me, glancing at his skin and the black vines snaking across him. “What did you…” His eyes roll back and he gasps, crumbling to the floor. And just like that, he’s dead. My one love, my soul mate, my forever, is dead.
I could crawl to him. Cry. Mourn.
I don’t.
I open the watch and stare at the hands moving around and around. In the center of the numbers is a pin-size silver button. I keep my focus on it, and the power flowing inside my body, as every single mark lights up and the power connects. My lungs expand to the max, filling with air as I press down while shutting my eyes and everything leaves me. Alex. My parents. My friends. Everyone. They’re all gone. And so is the anger, the happiness, the longing, the need, the anguish, the guilt, the pain. It dissipates, like moments in time, the kind that happen so quickly, they blow away in the wind like dandelion seeds