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The meaning is unmistakable. They’re going to fucking kill me. They’re going to slash my throat and let me bleed out right here in the hopes that my death will be the magical lock that keeps a god from rising.

I almost laugh. This is the stuff of horror movies—surely Edgar can see that. Surely he can hear how ridiculous and melodramatic he sounds, how foolish this idea is…

Then again, my entire life has been a horror movie. Why should this be any different?

There’s a fanatical gleam in Edgar’s eyes as his gaze locks with mine again. I struggle to move, to speak, but I can only hang between my aunt and my father, bound by their joint embrace.

“You all know Cathy Earnshaw,” says Edgar.

“Maybe, like me, you always felt that she was a soul apart, not entirely devoted like the rest of us. There was a good reason for that. She has been unnatural since her birth. She inherited the dark blood of the demon and a wretched gift along with it. That gift rightfully concerned us at first, but now we bless her. We thank her, and we thank God for giving her to us because through her sacrifice, we find safety. We find hope. We rise undismayed to face the future.”

You fucking bastard. You absolute fool. You traitor, you asshole… In my mind I reel off every foul name I can think of.

This isn’t going to happen. This doesn’t happen, not these days. Not here .

People can’t be this stupid.

But maybe, when you’ve attended services month after month, when you’ve been cajoled and conned into trusting every word that falls from another human’s lips, you lose the ability to think for yourself. The mind-muscle that can discern truth from bullshit becomes atrophied.

When you’re told over and over that wrong is right, that hate is love, that wickedness is holy…when you sit there, week after week, and open your mind to that poison…maybe you begin to believe it.

And what if they’re right? What if the stranger in the dark coat knows exactly how to shut the god down for good?

What if this is the only way? What if my death could save lives?

A frantic voice screams in my mind, I don’t care, I don’t fucking care! All I care about is me! My life!

This has got to be a dream, a joke, a hoax. But the second I think those words, my brain reverses course into despair because I can’t deny it. It’s happening. It’s horribly, nightmarishly true.

There must be something I can do…some way I can get out of this…but without the ability to speak, struggle, or scream, I’m helpless.

Shit. Shit shit shit fuck .

Dad and Aunt Nellie are pulling me forward. My feet drag and stumble—one of my ankles bends painfully because I can’t control my legs.

They release my limp body and step back, leaving me slumped on my knees before Edgar.

My head lolls a bit, but I manage to lift my gaze to his face.

In his eyes gleams the frantic delight of a man who has always envisioned himself as a lord and savior. He’s loving this. It’s his shining moment, the dramatic pinnacle of his life.

Is it just that he wants to save our congregation and possibly the world? Or is there more to it? Am I imagining the edge of vengeful glee in his gaze? The glitter of jealousy being satisfied?

He hates me because I’m a banshee, yes…and he hates me because I chose Heathcliff.

Oh god— Heathcliff . If he ever does come looking for me, he’ll find out I’m dead. Or maybe they’ll say I ran away, and Heathcliff will wonder why I left him behind.

A tender pain stabs through my heart as I think of the tattoo he paid for. He really thought it would protect me. Romantic shit , he said. Sweet man.

Edgar is reciting Scripture now, droning on while I bow at his feet.

I’ve grieved death dozens of times, loudly, violently. Grieving my own death is a silent trauma. Never have I felt such pure, wretched despair, and it’s a keener torture than ever because I can’t let it out, can’t express its horror with movement or screams.

I will never kiss Heathcliff again. I can’t say goodbye or touch him or thank him for turning my painful existence into a thing of beauty, even for a little while.

What must he think of me? After the night we spent, the things we said, the matching tattoos—and then I sent him one text before I lost access to my phone. A text that, in chilling retrospect, I realize now sounded suspiciously like a goodbye.

I’ve already hurt him without meaning to. When he finds out I’m dead, he’s going to break .

The thought of his pain carves a ravine through my soul, splits me open. Tears slide from my eyes as I stare up at Edgar.

His features tighten, and he lifts his gaze to the congregation. “We won’t draw this out any longer,” he says. “We’ll do it quickly so you can all head home and rest. Let’s sing again. Pray these words in song with me: ‘Are You Washed in the Blood?’”

His high tenor soars through the ruined church, into the tangled wall of dark boughs beyond.

A shadow moves behind him—Ian Holcum, the stranger who condemned me to death.

He has raised the hood of his black coat, and he moves forward with sinuous purpose, a serpent bent on striking.

He steps swiftly behind me, with his back to the congregation.

I feel his fingers sliding into my hair, knotting there, pulling my head back to expose my throat.

A red flash sears my vision—terror burning through my mind. I’m going to die. Edgar isn’t going to do it himself; he’s letting this man perform the sacrifice. And I can’t stop it. No force of my will can fend it off. It’s happening now.

No no no—

I thrust all my energy into my arms, but I can only manage a limp, ineffectual brush of my fingers against the man’s wrists. The drug made me helpless, and all I can do is scream inside my head, shrieking mutely against the vivid, intimate reality of my own death.

I’m engulfed by my killer’s ominous presence as he bows over me, his broad back shielding the audience from what he’s about to do.

His hand appears in front of my face. Slender masculine fingers wrapped around a knife, an ancient-looking silver weapon with runes on it. My brain fixates on the thumbnail—pale pink, well-manicured. A flex of his thin wrist and the knife dips out of my sight.

Fire burns across my throat. Panic—hot liquid spilling out of me, spilling down my esophagus. Flames roaring through my neck, my head, lungs spasming, heart flying into an arrhythmic panic, throbbing loud, loud, louder, then stuttering as I choke, gargle, collapse to the ground.

I can smell the wet grass, the stony earth. A wisp of fog breathes wetly against my cheek. The voices falter, but they keep singing, slow and determined. Are you washed in the blood…

I think I hear a sob… I think it’s my dad.

I can heal faster than humans, and for half a second, I claw at that hope. But it’s a false one. I don’t heal fast enough to stop my life from leaking out.

Images flash through my mind—not pictures from my life but from the lives of all the people I’ve mourned. Because that has been my existence, bemoaning the absence of others. I’ve never had the chance to truly live myself. My life has always been about everyone else. And now it’s over. I’m done.

The injustice of that hurts worse than my family’s betrayal.

Something tingles on my hip, barely noticeable amid the pain and the quivering spasms of my dying brain.

And then a shift—the world slants, tipping me off its edge, out of my empty body.

A sickening drop into the dark.

I am floating, voiceless and sightless, in the great Nothing beyond the border of life.

I know that I am . I know that Heathcliff is , that he exists still, somewhere, forever beyond my bodiless reach. And that knowledge is agony worse than the bite of any blade.