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My phone buzzed on the nightstand and I saw the familiar name that had haunted us: Angie.

Is she this fucking stupid?

A cold spike of dread shot through me. I carefully slid out from under Sloane, grabbed the phone and slipped into the hallway. My thumb hovered over the screen for only a second before I answered.

I didn't say anything. I stood in the silence of the hallway, listening to her breathing through the phone.

Then her voice: thin, saccharine, serpentine. “Leviiiiii, baby.”

Anger flared in my chest, a warm, comforting ember of fury that steeled my resolve. “Leave me the fuck alone, cunt. ”

She giggled. “Oh, fuck, baby… I love when you talk dirty to me. I needed to hear your voice. I saw what happened at the clinic. How is our little Sloane?"

I seethed, "She is mine, not ours, and keep her name out of your filthy mouth."

"You know I didn't mean to hurt her, right? You know how I lose control when I feel cornered."

My grip tightened on my phone, nearly cracking the screen. “You came after a pregnant woman, Angie. You attacked her. You could have killed our baby. What. The fuck. Is wrong. With you?”

Her breathing was the only sound on the line for a moment, before she sighed. “Oh, baby… you used to understand me. Back then. When we were real.”

“We were never real,” I growled. “You were a distraction from my brokenness.”

She laughed, quiet and brittle. “You keep telling yourself that, baby. But I know you don’t mean it.”

This bitch is crazy. She isn't going to listen to reason. We need to end this somehow.

“What do you want?” I asked, my voice low.

There was a pause before she whispered into the phone, “To remind you of who you really are, baby. Before you forget again." I heard rustling in the background as she raised her voice, "You know how much I hate being neglected, Levi.”

Angie was a pampered mess, the product of her father’s money and a lifetime of always having her way. She was also a living testament to my own damn stupidity.

I repeated with more force, “What do you want? ”

“Mmm, baby," she pouted, "I want to suck your soul out of that thick cock of yours, to feel you ram it into me again, you trembling between my thighs, to drink your cu-"

"Enough! Fuck," I shouted, then whispered, practically begging, "please, stop this… and tell me what it is you really want from me right now."

"Right now? Well, I do want all of those things, baby. But for tonight?" Again, her breathing came through the phone like a living thing, writhing to wrap around me. "Tonight, I will settle on seeing you. Daddy says I have to leave town for a long time, and I want to say goodbye to you. In person."

"Where?" I growled, but I already knew the answer.

"Where it all started, baby.”

Predictable psycho.

I mumbled, “The park. Near the lake.”

She let loose a giggly squeal of excitement. “Oh, my baby! I knew you’d remember.”

“I’ll be there,” I said, barely recognizing the sound of my own voice. “Midnight.”

I ended the call and immediately dialed Detective Harlan.

“She just called,” I said, keeping my voice steady despite the uneasiness I felt with the exchange. “She wants to meet. Midnight.”

“I'll be damned. She’s unhinged but desperate. She’ll be vulnerable but also dangerous.”

“She said her dad is trying to get her to skip town. Wants to say goodbye in person, but I think she might try something. You’ll be there?”

“Already on it,” he confirmed. “Where did she say to meet? "

Shame hits me then but I said, "The first place we met was at a park, near the restrooms. There's a lake nearby, too. A good place for her to dump my body."

"Let's not make assumptions. I will get moving on our side. Wear bright clothes so we can clearly see you. We’ll move as soon as she makes a threat since she has already violated the no-contact.” There was a pause. "Do you truly feel like she is a danger to your safety?"

“Honestly, I am not sure anymore what she is capable of, but I’m not afraid. I want this to be over.”

“Then let’s end it, Mr. Shaw. Text me the address of the park and what clothes you'll be wearing.”

Things moved fast after we disconnected. So fast, in fact, that I accidentally texted Harlan the incorrect address. Which meant that I was unwittingly going to face this psychopath unarmed, in the middle of the woods, at midnight… alone.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't discover my mistake until far too late.

After the call with Harlan, I woke up Sloane and let her know what the plan was. I expected pushback, or resistance… but she said she trusted me to do the right thing. Even after everything I'd put her through and all she'd suffered because of me, she trusted me still.

If I'd had the time, I would have spent all night and most of the next day showing her just how much that meant to me. But I didn't.

I had a date with the devil, so I had to leave my goddess behind.

She hugged me before I left, tears in her eyes before whispering to me, “Be safe. I love you.”

By midnight, the park was a frozen graveyard of rotten memories.

The lake shimmered under the moonlight, still and cold.

It was bitterly cold, each exhaled breath a steamy puff.

I stood near the restrooms, the same place where I first gave in to every selfish impulse, where I first let Angie sink her claws into me.

She approached from the dark, hands stuffed in her thick black coat, blonde hair pulled into a tight braid. Her eyes gleamed in the low light like a wolf stalking its prey.

“You came,” she whispered, her lips curving into that too-wide smile.

“I’m here,” I said. “Say what you need to say.” My phone was held in my hand, the recording app running.

She stepped closer, staying about five feet away, and reached her hands up towards me. “We could disappear, baby. Just us. Like we planned. Remember? Before everything got so… complicated.”

I said nothing. Every muscle in my body was coiled tight. I shook my head at her.

Her smile faltered as she said, nearly begging me, "We could go back to Key West?"

We could go back to Key West?

Go back to Key West?

Back to?

The horror of realization must have been painted across my face, for I saw her manic grin return in full force.

"Baby," she said, "do you remember me now? How many times you fucked me all over the beaches of Key West?"

I shuddered as one hand tightened around my phone and the other covered my mouth. The sound of her voice, too knowing, too familiar, settled into the darkest most stained parts of me. Her voice was the sound of an irreparable wrong I could never right nor ever escape.

Angie wasn't haunted by our past and she wasn’t delusional.

This whole time, she had been taunting me with our future that hadn't happened yet.

She was like me. She had lived beyond the present, beyond the boundaries of the now , and she carried the weight of an already lived future within her… just like I did.

She is like me.

Charlie is like us .

The unexpected randomness of that realization, to think of Charlie right then, was not something I had the luxury of examining in the moment. While I had been processing these revelations, she'd crept closer and was within arm's reach.

Her broken smile split her face in two and she cackled. "Yes! Oh, you remember now, baby? You remember how we used to be?"

How we used to be?

The constant fucking, then fighting, then fucking, then fighting. Our entire two years together had been nothing but empty orgasms and explosive outrage.

I struggled to speak, only managing a strangled, "How?"

"Because we're soulmates, Levi. Isn't that obvious?" She took one tentative step towards me and was so close I smelled her cloying perfume. "Our love transcended death and brought us back to when we first came together."

I violently shook my head. Her explanation forced bile to sear the back of my throat as my stomach roiled.

She reached up and touched my face. "We have one more chance to make it right this time."

I leapt back as if shocked.

Where the fuck are the cops?

"Levi, baby, it's okay." Her tone was coddling, as if she were soothing a frightened animal. She held her hands out, but didn't come closer. "I could pay for everything for us this time. Not with Daddy's money, either. I made my own."

The Angie I knew had no marketable skills and only syphoned from her family's wealth. Part of me was curious about what the hell she meant, but not enough to engage.

"No," is all I said.

She shook her head, the hints of a frown souring her face as she started spiraling, her words bursting out in a barely comprehensible blur.

“You will be so proud of me, I know you will, so I have to tell you.

When I woke up and realized what happened, realized the pandemic was coming, I thought of our first time in Key West, during the initial quarantine.

I recalled the specific companies you said you'd have invested in if you'd had a crystal ball; do you remember saying that?

I remember exactly which stocks you pointed out, because I believed in you, I've always believed in you, Levi!

So I borrowed some of Daddy's money and bought shares of the companies you picked and, oh baby, you were so right! "

The fact she remembered the specifics of an idle conversation we'd had nearly twelve years ago unnerved me almost as much as her crazed eyes.

I tried to subtly scan the tree line, hoping to catch a glimpse of the police, while she kept rambling.

"Daddy never believed me. Never believed in me.

Said I was chasing fantasies. But he lost three businesses.

Three! Then when the stocks I'd bought finally took off, he lit up like Christmas morning!

" Her voice broke up and it sounded as if she might cry, but I didn't care.

"He told me he was proud of me. First time ever.

You see, Daddy owes money to some really scary people.

Despite how much he has, he's always saying it's for the Coven. ”