Page 25 of Forgotten (The Soulbound #1)

I know I’m going to die the moment Mark’s hands close around my throat.

There’s no fight left in me. Even if I could claw him off—if I had some impossible reserve of strength left—my body has limits. Adrenaline can only carry me so far, and I spent every last drop of it on Duvall before Mark made his move.

So... this is it. The end of my story.

This is who I ended up being—a woman unloved, disrespected, and discarded. Dying on the cold, hard floor of my kitchen.

A strange calm takes over as my body starts to fail. It feels distant, like I’m watching my own death from outside myself. Mark's grip tightens. My vision tunnels. Darkness eats at the edges. My limbs jerk weakly, fingers scraping against his wrist, but there's no real strength behind it. No resistance.

I’m dying. We both know it.

I see it in his eyes that he's just as aware.

And the thing that hurts me the most?

There’s no hesitation in his eyes. No fear. No rage. Just certainty. Like this was always how it was meant to end. Like somewhere along the way, Mark Dilano stopped seeing me as his wife and started seeing me as a burden. And now, he’s getting rid of it.

It sparks the last bits of anger in me.

Not because he’s killing me. Not because my body is failing. But because he looks at me like I was never meant to be anything but his to erase.

No.

I am not his.

Even if I die here, even if everything I am burns out like a cheap candle in a hurricane, I will not let my last moment be him looking at me like I was nothing. Because I am something. I always was. Sure, maybe I never figured out what. Maybe I ran out of time. Maybe I spent too long trying to be soft when I should have been sharp.

But I am not nothing.

So I hate him. I hate him so much, it’s all I feel. I hate him with the intensity of a thousand collapsing stars. When the last scrap of air abandons my lungs, I still hate him. Even as my body goes cold, even as my heartbeat sputters out like a broken record—I hate him so much I’m taking that hate with me into the dark.

And I hope my death stains his hands. I hope he hears my voice in every goddamn silence. I hope it haunts him in his sleep, creeping into his dreams like a whisper in the dark, like something rotting beneath the floorboards. I don't know if it will, but I really, really hope it does.

That’s all I’ve got left.

His lips part slightly. Maybe he’s saying something. Maybe he’s gloating. Maybe he’s delivering some final, pretentious monologue. But I don’t hear it. Because in the next second—

I’m gone.

Death has come.

And the first thing I notice about it? It’s quiet. No wailing. No trumpets. No celestial fanfare. No screaming souls or ominous laughter. Just… silence.

I am floating. Or maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m just here—or nowhere. I feel the absence of my body, like I never had it in the first place.

No weight. No pain. No breath. No heartbeat. No cold. No warmth. Just… nothing. Even my hate is fading.

And yet—it's the only thing still remaining.

I drift, but there is no sense of motion. No time. It might have been a few seconds that passed. It might have been months. But eventually, something stirs.

A pale light flickers at the edges of my awareness, soft and inviting. It whispers relief, promises warmth. I don’t know where it leads, but I’ve got nothing else to lose.

So I follow it.

That's when my memories crash over me in waves, bleeding through the void I'm leaving behind.

Mark’s hands.

Mark’s voice.

Mark’s wedding vows.

The way he smiled at me once. The way he whispered my name in the dark, back when I thought love was real. The way he changed .

No.

The way he never changed. He was always like this. I just refused to see it.

I chose him. I stood at that altar. I took his name. I built my life around him. And he murdered me for it.

A sharp, jagged realization blooms inside me like a deadly little flower. I wasted so much of my life trying to be his. Trying to be a wife. Trying to fit into the neat little mold of whatever the hell he wanted me to be. And now, in death? There’s nothing. No house. No wedding rings. No “grow old together” fantasy. Just this. Just me.

“A tragic end.”

The voice cuts through the void, smooth as glass and twice as sharp. It’s not loud. It’s not soft. It’s just… there. Like a fact of the universe. It doesn’t feel warm. It doesn’t feel cruel. It just is.

And somehow, I know exactly who it belongs to.

Death.

“You were murdered, Skye Dilano,” it tells me. “And as such, you are being offered a choice”

A sensation unspools in my chest, something vast and unknowable. A doorway cracking open. A decision carving itself into the very fabric of my being.

“You may pass beyond the veil,” it continues as the warm light flickers again, inviting me to keep following it. “You may let go of this life and be granted another in time, free of the burdens you carried here.”

The void shifts. And then, I see it.

A second light.

Darker. Heavier. A weight made of shadow and duty and permanence. A path that does not lead away. A path that leads back.

“Pass on, and your story ends here.” The warm light flickers again. “Stay, and you will become something else entirely.” The darker light pulses. “A Grim Reaper.”

A Grim Reaper?” You will collect souls the way you were meant to be collected . You will remain in the world, unseen, and unshaken by its petty griefs. You will be neither alive nor dead.” A pause. A beat. “And when your murderer dies, you'll be given a chance to balance the scales.”

To balance the scales...

My stomach lurches. Suddenly, I'm aware of what that means.

I would wait. I would watch. I would see Mark live. I would see him move on. And then, when his time came—when fate or karma or someone else’s hands finally ended him—

I would be there.

And I would decide what happens next.

I would get my revenge.

My fingers twitch. Fingers. Hands. I realize I have hands again. I realize I am standing .

Two paths before me. Two lights. Two fates.

The warmth calls to me. The dark sings to me.

And for the first time in my existence—in my life, and now in my death—

The choice is mine.