Page 258 of Blackwood

A lullaby I once possessed.

Cade’s hands, steady, hold my own.

But I’m not here. I’m skin and bone.

I’m glass. I’m smoke. A haunted hum.

I’m all the things I can’t outrun.

Slipping under, gone from sight,

Bury the day, embrace the night.

Where mercy rots, the heart turns black,

And madness grows, there’s no way back.

III

Part Three

Chapter 70

LEX

Our Apartment - scared to fucking death

2 Days Since the Masquerade

“Knox, this isn’t fucking working,” I mutter, dragging a hand down my face. My jaw’s so tight I can barely get the words out. “You need to take over.”

Haley’s arms cross over her chest, her voice is soft, trembling at the edges. “Yeah, babe. Lex is right. She needs you. It’s been two days. You have to bring her back.”

Knox doesn’t move. He just stares at the couch like it’s holding a bomb. “I don’t know if I can,” he says finally and the defeat in his voice makes my stomach turn. “Look at her. She hasn’t moved. Hasn’t eaten. She hasn’t even blinked since yesterday.”

“She did this after Zeke,” Haley whispers, voice cracking. “You were the one who got through to her. You pulled her out.”

She presses her knuckles to her mouth, trying to hold it together. “Please, Knox. Help her. I can’t,” her voice breaks completely. “We can’t lose her.”

“That was different, Hales,” he says, his voice shakes just barely, but enough to make me look at him. “Last time she never saw Zeke’s body. Never saw the blood. The damage. Just a closed casket and a thousand things left unsaid.”

He swallows hard, jaw gritted like it hurts to speak. “This time… she saw him. She held it. In her hands.” He glances toward the couch, where she sits in the same damn spot she collapsed in two nights ago. “Right when she was finally starting to connect with him after all these years.”

His voice drops to almost nothing. “She held her father’s head in her hands.”

A beat of silence.

“I’m worried that there isn’t anything left inside of her for me to pull out this time.”

Footsteps pad softly across the floor. Ellie appears beside us, her makeup smeared, blonde curls flat and limp like the air’s been drained out of her too. She’s holding a bottle of water in both hands, fingers wrapped so tightly around the plastic it crinkles.

“She wouldn’t drink it,” she says quietly. “I tried. Sat next to her for like fifteen minutes.” The tears start to fall from her deep blue eyes. “She just… looked right through me.”

I swallow hard. My pulse is hammering behind my eyes.

Dr. Monroe steps forward from the back wall, hands folded, shoulders tense under his dark green sweater. He’s been here the whole time, watching. Waiting.

Completely fucking failing.