Page 24 of Forgotten (The Soulbound #1)

Less than two hours.

That’s all the time the injury Cassian gave the wraith bought us. Less than two short hours before she came back.

I feel her before I see her.

It starts as a prickle beneath my skin. An itch in the back of my mind. A wrongness in the air, like the hum of an off-key note that I can’t quite place.

Then the air thickens.

Nathaniel is the first to react. His head snaps toward the window. Cassian’s grip tightens on the wheel. Talon, who’d been pretending not to brood, suddenly goes still, his attention shifting toward the back of the car.

I sit up straighter, pulse spiking. Oh, fuck.

It’s not paranoia. It’s not nerves.

She’s really here.

“You feel that?” Talon mutters, his voice a low, warning growl.

Nathaniel swears under his breath.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “We need to move faster.”

Cassian doesn’t need to be told twice. His knuckles go white around the wheel as he stomps on the gas with a thud. My body slams into the backseat with the force of a watermelon exploding under a thousand rubber bands, and I have to physically remind myself that now is not the time to astral project out of my own spine.

But the feeling doesn’t fade. If anything, it gets worse.

Just like I could see into Nathaniel’s soul, or later just know what kind of life choices Laura Collins has made, I can feel her now. The wraith. And whatever tiny sliver of humanity she had while alive? Yeah, that’s gone. She’s not a soul anymore. She’s not even a person. She’s simply a monster.

“Where is she?” Talon asks next to me. “Can you locate her?”

Well…

I don’t need to try.

I don’t need to search.

I already know where she is.

Outside.

Right next to us.

I whip my head to the window just as the darkness moves. A blur of shadow, surging alongside the speeding car, keeping pace with us like it’s nothing.

No more sickly sweet smiles. No more whispery, amused little giggles.

No. This time, she’s fucking furious.

Her form is jagged, flickering too fast for my eyes to fully process. Her mouth is open in a snarl, teeth bared in some impious display of rage, as if she’s pure ire.

“She’s right outside!” I shout, lurching away from the window. “She’s following us!”

Nathaniel spins just in time to see her, his face going pale. “Shit.”

Shit is an understatement.

Talon curses, reaching for the dagger made out of the Grim Reaper's scythe, while Cassian grits his teeth and somehow stomps on the gas even harder.

“Hold on,” he grinds out. “We're gonna lose her.”

Except, I don't think we are. Because you can’t exactly outrun something that doesn’t obey the physics of the living realm. She’s not alive. She’s like me—dangling between worlds like a goddamn ghost-flavored fruit snack.

And worse? She’s a hunter.

And even worse ? She’s goddamn pissed.

Cassian rips the wheel sideways, sending the car skidding into a turn so sharp the force of it nearly flings me sideways. But the wraith doesn’t falter.

She surges with us, gliding effortlessly along the side of the car.

The speed does nothing to her.

“She’s keeping up,” Nathaniel growls, twisting in his seat to confirm our shared nightmare. “Cass, you need to—”

“I know,” Cassian snaps. He jerks the wheel again, sending us swerving down a side street.

The speed limit is a joke at this point. If we hit so much as a pothole, we’re about to be an abstract smear on the pavement.

And the wraith?

Still unfazed. Still keeping up.

Her body flickers in and out like she’s glitching between dimensions.

I grind my teeth and reach out with my mind, desperately summoning Pain. My raven. My little harbinger of doom who, at the worst possible moments, fucks off to do “bird things”—whatever those are.

But this time, he actually listens.

With a sharp, crackling burst of black feathers, Pain slams into existence on the dashboard, his beady eyes gleaming with something a little too intelligent. He lets out a piercing croak and stares at me sharply.

“Scythe!” I yell, stretching my arm out.

I grab Nathaniel's seat and try to keep myself upright. The car’s lurching movements make it damn near impossible, but Pain understands.

With a shuddering, static-charged ripple, Pain does its magic. Its little body trembles, distorting, and then—SNAP.

The scythe slams into my grasp, crackling with raw energy.

The second it materializes, the wraith reacts.

Her head whips toward me like a horror movie jump scare, her entire form twitching and distorting at triple speed. Her mouth stretches open, a jagged, gaping void—

And then she screams.

A bloodcurdling, ear-shattering, glass-rattling shriek that makes the whole car tremble.

“Come on, Cass!” Talon snaps, practically vibrating in the backseat next to me. He’s seeing exactly what I’m seeing, and apparently, his solution is blind, stupid confidence. “We can outrun this bitch, right?!”

I almost feel bad for him. Almost. But considering he created the wraith in the first place, any sympathy is on a strict diet.

And yet, I can taste his fear. It’s almost as pungent as mine, a perfect little cocktail of macabre and regret.

Cassian doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. We all know the answer.

This isn’t a race.

It’s a funeral with extra steps.

We can’t outrun her.

We can’t outmaneuver her.

We need a different plan—right now.

But before my idiot brain can even finish that thought, she moves.

One second, she’s outside. The next, she’s inside .

The car turns to ice. A breath-stealing cold erupts around us, sinking into my marrow, paralyzing every muscle in my body. Shadows bloom like a toxic ink spill, devouring every last drop of light. My world narrows into something thick and suffocating.

I can’t see.

I can’t breathe.

All I feel is her .

And then—claws.

Jagged. Black as sin. Latched around my arm.

“You're mine,” a crackling whisper slithers into my ear.

And then, she yanks me backward.

I don’t even have time to scream.

I don’t even have time to scream before my entire body gets slammed backward. My back collides with the door, the wraith’s grip not just touching me but infecting me, her cold burrowing into my bones like some kind of supernatural frostbite.

Nathaniel lunges, fingers skimming my wrist—

Too late.

The wraith rips me through the car door.

Out. Into the night.

Wind howls past me, snatching the air from my lungs. My hair whips in my face, stinging, blinding. The road below rushes up, a dark smear of doom, eager to tenderly kiss my skull with the sweet embrace of asphalt.

Behind me, tires shriek. Someone howls my name, the sound raw, desperate—

But I’m already falling.

I don’t have time to think. I react.

I twist midair like a cat who miscalculated a jump, flailing wildly, scythe slashing at the void as if that will help. It does not.

My body jerks. My free hand claws at nothing, fingers grasping for purchase, for anything , but the wraith’s grip is an iron shackle, dragging me under. Cold, endless, suffocating.

I fight. I thrash. I burn.

And then—

Impact.

The ground slams into me. My body crumples, rolls, crashes, tumbles—my shoulder explodes with pain, a searing, white-hot agony that rips through me like fire. I swear it feels real, like I'm really here, corporeal and alive. It feels as if the asphalt has torn my skin, as if bones got broken, as if there's blood pooling in my bruises.

The world spins, a chaotic mess of dark sky, pavement, distant headlights.

Tires scream.

Metal shrieks.

Voices—yelling, panicked, broken.

And then—

A crash.

The sound of impact is deafening. Metal collides, a sickening crunch splitting through the night. I feel it in my ribs, even though I’m not the one in the car anymore.

The guys…

I try to turn, to see if they are okay, but I don’t even get the chance.

Because she descends.

I attempt to move—to do anything—but my shoulder is a ticking time bomb of pain, and my limbs? My limbs are on strike. My scythe lies just inches away, but it might as well be on the other side of the city.

“No more running,” the wraith hisses, voice like a shattered window dragging itself against chalkboard.

She gets on top of me, pressing down, her entire form shifting and writhing, like she’s still deciding what shape she wants to take. I see flickers of something beneath the shadows—twisted glimpses of the woman she was before. A different breed of monster. Yet a monster regardless.

I gasp, struggling, my pulse thundering.

“I'm going to eat you,” she snarls. “You will be mine.”

I’d make a joke about it, but this is not funny anymore.

It’s terrifying.

Her clawed hands snap around my throat. I choke. My hands fly up to fight back, but it's like trying to strangle a block of haunted ice.

And suddenly, I am right back there.

My ex-husband's hands—No. Mark's hands. His hands wrapped around my windpipe, squeezing. That look in his eyes, the way he wanted me gone, like I was a goddamn inconvenience. Reporting me missing, blaming me for his financial scam, branding me Duvall’s whore. Burying me underneath my Gran’s beloved willow tree.

No, no, NO—

Rage hits me like a baseball bat to the soul.

A violent, scorching wave of raw refusal rips through every nerve in my body. My fingers twitch, my vision warps, and suddenly—

I'm not lying on the asphalt anymore.

I am somewhere else. A couple feet away.

It takes me a second to process what just happened because my brain, much like my life, is too shaken for logic. But then it hits me.

I’ve just teleported.

Just like the wraith has before. The wraith stumbles forward, her claws still clenched around the air where I had been seconds ago, which is now occupied by nothing. Her head jerks up, the shadows writhing around her shifting violently. And—for the first time since she crawled out of the hellhole that spat her back—she hesitates.

I exhale, sharp and shaky, a little drunk on adrenaline.

“I won't be suffocated twice, you bitch,” I hiss.

Above us, Pain lets out a piercing screech as it circles overhead.

My scythe. I need my scythe.

I lunge for it, my fingers stretching—

Too late.

The wraith moves first. Not at my weapon, not at me—

She goes for the wrecked car behind me.

Oh, fuck.

The guys.

I whip around just in time to witness the absolute disaster. The car has spun off the road, slammed into a crumbling concrete divider. Smoke curls up from the hood, the metal twisted, the windows shattered.

Talon is already crawling out of the backseat, blood streaking down his temple. Nathaniel shoves his way out next, gripping his side, his expression twisted in pain. Cassian… Cassian is still inside.

The wraith notices. Oh, she knows. And she’s coming for them.

I don’t think. I act.

Whether it’s rage, desperation, or some divine mix of both, I’m suddenly between them before my brain even catches up. I don’t teleport this time—I just move faster than I ever have before, my scythe appearing in my grip like it’s answering some unspoken call.

I swing.

The blade slices through her, a burst of darkness exploding outward, and she screams. Just like before. But I’ve heard this song before, and frankly, I’m not in the mood for a repeat performance. Last time, a stab wasn’t enough. This time, I need to destroy her. Wound her so hard she won’t just stay dead—she’ll regret ever existing in the first place.

I lunge, flipping my grip, my scythe whistling through the air in another vicious arc. This is it. No more cat and mouse. No more running. No more games. She dies here.

Except—

She vanishes.

Not flickers. Not dodges. Not twists away.

One moment, she’s there, still writhing, still snarling, still burning with whatever blasphemous hunger is keeping her tethered to this world—

And then she’s gone.

The air turns still. Eerily still. Her presence vanishes so fast it’s like the universe undid her. One second, I’m mid-murder, and the next? I’m swinging at absolutely nothing.

No.

No, no, no.

Can’t be. She couldn’t have just run away again.

I whip around, scanning the darkness, waiting. Any second now, she’ll respawn. I’ll hear that spine-curdling, distorted whisper creeping around the edges of my mind

But there’s nothing.

Not a flicker. Not a whisper of cold. Not a goddamn thing.

She’s gone.

A second passes. Then another.

I should refocus. Track her down. Hunt her. I know I can—I’m stronger now, faster, angrier. I’ll tear through the fabric of this godforsaken dimension if I have to. But then—

“Skye!”

Talon’s voice slams into me like a brick to the skull.

I turn, and—oh. Oh, shit.

The moment I see him , my stomach lurches.

Nathaniel must have pulled him out of the driver's seat. He's bent over him, his hands pressing down hard on Cassian’s stomach, his forearms already slick with blood.

So much blood...

Talon is crouched beside them, his face pale, his hands shaking.

“He’s—he’s—” He doesn’t even get the words out before his voice shatters like cheap glass.

My scythe dissolves into smoke as I drop to my knees.

Cassian’s eyes are half-lidded, his face a shade too pale under the streetlights. His lips part, but no sound comes out.

“Talon,” Nathaniel barks. “Help me.”

His hands are soaked in red. Cassian’s chest rises and falls in shallow, uneven breaths.

My stomach turns.

I’ve seen death before. Hell, I am death. But not like this.

Not him.

I don't know why it matters, but it does. More than I'd ever like to admit.

He matters to me.

Cassian. That stupid, annoying asshole.

Nathaniel rips open his shirt, revealing a gaping wound low on his abdomen. His hands move instinctively, pressing down again to staunch the bleeding, but the moment he does, Cassian chokes.

A horrible, wet sound.

His entire body convulses beneath Nathaniel’s grip, his hands jerking up like he’s trying to push him away—like he’s trying to fight, like he’s still trying to survive.

Nathaniel mutters a curse, his voice teetering on the edge of frantic.

“Stay with me, Cass. You hear me? Stay with me.”

Cassian gasps. His head tilts, his eyes flickering between open and closed. He isn’t really seeing us anymore.

Panic shoves its claws down my throat.

Cassian is dying .

“Do something!” Talon snaps, his voice raw, desperate. “You’re a fucking doctor, Nathaniel! Fix him! Do something!”

Nathaniel doesn’t look at him. He just presses harder, his expression set, determined. Like he refuses to accept the reality unfolding in front of him.

“I’m trying,” he grits out. “But I—” He cuts himself off, voice catching. Then, through sheer force of will, he shoves the emotion back down. “He’s losing too much blood. I need—fuck, I need a transfusion, I need—”

And then, I feel it.

The moment everything shifts.

Cassian’s pulse. Stuttering. Slowing.

No, no, no—

His body jerks again, his back arching slightly off the ground as his breath rattles in his chest. Then, all at once—

He goes still.

Nathaniel’s hands are still pressed against the wound, but they’re shaking now, his arms trembling with something close to panic.

Talon exhales sharply, like he’s trying to breathe through the terror settling over him. His head tilts up, his fingers curled into the pavement.

We all know what’s going on. We’ve seen enough of this stuff already.

But Nathaniel doesn’t stop. He tilts Cassian’s head back, pries his mouth open, starts CPR. He doesn’t even hesitate, just starts pressing hard, fast, desperate.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he mutters under his breath, his voice cracking around the edges. “You don’t get to fucking die, Cass. Not like this.”

No response.

He presses harder.

Nothing.

And there it is.

Cassian's soul.

A little blue ember lifts right from his chest, and my breath rattles in my chest. My fingers shake. Nathaniel is still pressing down on Cassian’s body, still trying, still working, but he must be seeing this as well. His hands won’t bring Cassian back. His methods—his logic, his medicine—none of it is enough.

“Fuck. Fuck!” A tear runs down Talon’s cheek.

The pull wakes up within me.

The soul is mine to reap. Mine. I should take it. I should. This is the natural order of things.

Death has rules.

I've followed them my entire afterlife. Never questioned them. Never broke them.

Cassian's death isn't a murder. There’s no premeditation, no vengeful hands guiding his end. This is fate. He is meant to die here, now, and I am meant to take him. The rules of Karma demand it. He has victims—killers, yes, but still victims—who have the right to exact their justice.

I know the order of things. I shouldn’t deny it.

And yet—something inside me snaps.

“Not him,” I whisper, standing up.

His soul is tiny. Too small. It looks different from the others I’ve reaped before. Or maybe that’s a lie. Maybe I’m just making excuses. But I want to protect it. I want to protect him.

I don’t have a reason. No logic. No justification that makes sense. But I don’t fucking need one.

Because Cassian isn’t going to die tonight.

Not if I have anything to say about it.

I drop to my knees beside him once more, my fingers curling into the fabric of his ruined shirt, and I do the one thing I swore I would never do willingly.

I break the rules myself.

I don’t just reach for his soul.

I take it.

And I force it back in.

The moment my hands close over the fragile ember of his essence, a violent, unnatural force rips through me. It’s like trying to force a door shut against a hurricane—like trying to stuff something too big into a space too small. My entire body seizes, pain exploding through my limbs, my chest, my head—every single nerve in my body rebelling against it.

But I don’t stop.

I won’t stop.

A scream claws its way out of my throat as Cassian’s body jerks. His back arches violently off the pavement, his mouth opening in a silent, broken gasp as his soul collides back into his flesh. His fingers twitch. His chest rises sharply. The color rushes back into his skin like ink spilling across a page, and for a split second—just one—he looks more alive than he ever has before.

And then the backlash hits me.

Hard.

A crushing, all-consuming weight crashes down on me. My vision fractures at the edges, colors bleeding into darkness, my breath catching in my chest like a bird in a too-small cage.

No.

No.

I grit my teeth, fighting to hold on, to stay upright. But it’s like something inside me is being ripped away.

My power.

My being.

My very soul.

It’s too much.

I stagger back, my arms wrapping around my middle as something sharp and wrong lances through my chest. I feel… less then . Like my life juice is being drained out of me.

And then—nothing.

I can’t move.

I can’t speak.

I barely have the energy to keep my eyes open.

Pain—my traitorous little raven—lets out a strangled, panicked croak from somewhere nearby, but even that sound is fading, warping like it's being sucked down a drain.

Then—hands.

Strong. Rough. Warm.

Someone catches me before I hit the ground.

Someone is saying my name.

I think it’s Cassian.

Or maybe it’s Talon.

Maybe both.

I don’t know.

The darkness rises up to meet me.

And all I can do is let it.