Page 18 of Trick Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve)

The words sting because they’re true. Every relationship I’ve ever had has had an expiration date, some faster than others.

My parents still love me, I know they do, but they’ve always loved me from a safe distance.

Like I’m radioactive. Like caring too much might infect them with whatever wrongness I carry.

“You’re right,” I say, and my voice only shakes a little. “I am terrified of being left again. Of not being enough to make someone stay. Of being the person everyone eventually realizes they can live without.”

My reflection’s smile falters slightly, like she wasn’t expecting agreement.

“But here’s what you’re missing,” I continue, finding strength in acknowledging the fear rather than fighting it.

“I survived everyone who left. I built a life, maybe not a perfect one, but mine. I learned to be alone without being lonely. Well, mostly. Sundays are still rough. And holidays. And birthdays. Okay, so I haven’t totally mastered it, but I’m working on it. ”

“Pretty words—” my reflection starts.

“I’m not done,” I interrupt, which feels weird, interrupting myself, but here we are.

“If I can be complete on my own, if I can function and survive and even sometimes thrive alone, then I can choose to be with someone without needing them to complete me. That’s not desperation. That’s choice. That’s freedom.”

“You think you’re free?” She laughs, and it sounds like ice cracking. “You’re bound by your gift, your fear, your desperate need to matter to someone, anyone?—”

“True words,” I cut her off again. “I talk to the dead for a living. I’ve learned that the only lies that really hurt are the ones we tell ourselves.

And I’ve been telling myself I’m not enough for so long that I started believing it.

But here’s the thing—I’m scared, yeah. Terrified.

But I’m here anyway. Standing by a cursed pool at three-something in the morning, facing my worst fears made manifest, because breaking this curse matters. He matters. We matter.”

I squeeze Ash’s hand, drawing strength from his solid presence. He does the same back, and I know he’s watching, listening to me.

“That’s not weakness,” I continue, voice stronger now. “That’s courage. That’s choosing to try even when failure is not just possible but probable. That’s human. And I’m human. Flawed and strange and sometimes I talk to my houseplants even though they’re dead, but human.”

My reflection ripples, distorts, the silver light in her eyes flickering like a dying bulb. For a moment, she’s monstrous, all teeth and hunger and void, and then suddenly she’s just me. Tired and scared but standing her ground, mascara smeared but chin up .

Ash turns to his own reflection.

“You want my truth?” His voice is steady, the Alpha one that makes people listen whether they want to or not. “The reality is I wake up every morning with their names in my throat. Seven names, seven faces, seven futures that ended because of my choice.”

His reflection watches with those wrong eyes, patient as a spider.

“But here’s the rest of that truth—forty-three children woke up this morning because of that same choice.

Forty-three futures that exist because I was willing to carry seven ghosts.

” His voice strengthens, gaining power with each word.

“My father would have let them all die rather than lose warriors. ‘Acceptable losses,’ he would have called them. Children. Babies. Acceptable losses.”

“Pretty philosophy for a killer,” his reflection says, teeth too sharp around the words.

“I am a killer,” Ash agrees without flinching.

“I’ve ended lives with my hands, my teeth, my choices.

I’ve washed blood from my skin so many times I sometimes forget what clean feels like.

But I’ve also saved lives. Protected them.

Shielded the weak from the strong, the innocent from the guilty.

The killing serves the protecting, not the other way around.

That’s what makes me different from my father. ”

“Different but not better?—”

“Better,” Ash says firmly. “Not perfect. Not even good some days. But better. I choose to be better every day, even when it costs everything, even when it earns nothing but grief. That’s not a weakness. That’s a strength my father never understood.”

His reflection shifts, normalizes, becomes just him, scarred and steady and absolutely certain.

The pool goes still again, perfectly mirror-still, and for a moment I think we’ve done it. Broken through whatever test this is, passed whatever cosmic final exam we’ve been taking all night.

Then the surface starts to bubble.

Not like boiling water, but like something massive is rising from depths that shouldn’t exist in a shallow pool. As though this isn’t really a pool at all but a window, and something on the other side has decided to come through.

“That’s not good,” I admit, backing up, pulling Ash with me. “That’s very much not good.”

The water explodes outward, but instead of getting us wet, it forms shapes in the air, shadows with weight. They swirl around us like a tornado of whispers, and I can hear words, phrases, accusations, each one in a different voice, some I recognize, others I don’t:

Failure— —freak— —unwanted— —weak— —abandoned— —killer— —monster— —alone— —always alone— —why did you let me die— —should have been you ? —

The shadows press in, cold and invasive, trying to worm their way under my skin. It’s like being embraced by every doubt I’ve ever had, every fear made manifest, every 3:00 a.m. thought given form and malice.

“Don’t listen!” Ash shouts, pulling me against him, but the shadows are between us too, yanking at us to pry us apart with fingers made of ice.

He’ll leave— —she’ll run— —not enough— —never enough— —everyone leaves— —everyone dies ? —

“No!” I press my face against Ash’s chest, his heartbeat hammering against my cheek. “I am enough. We are enough. I survived being alone, and I choose not to be. That’s strength, not weakness. That’s choice, not desperation.”

“I protect because I can’t not protect,” Ash adds into my hair, his arms tight around me like he can shield me from incorporeal threats through sheer will.

The shadows actually shriek and pull at us harder. Something fundamental is starting to shift within me, like tectonic plates moving in my soul. The wolf in my head howls in distress, but it’s not just being upset. There’s something else. Anticipation? Fear? Recognition?

The death-cold in my bones flares to ice, but it’s not leaving. It’s… changing. Merging with something else, something warm and wild and alive.

And then? —

Raw, unfiltered, impossible power flooding through me like someone opened a dam in my chest. This is hot and cold together, life and death wound into a double helix.

“Ash!” I gasp, and he’s breathless too, doubling over but not letting go of me, never letting go.

“I feel strange,” he hisses through gritted teeth. The shadows converge, slamming into us like a powerful force, being hit by a wall of frozen night. I hear myself screaming.

The darkness presses in from all sides.

Something is wrong.

The wolf howls in my ears, while Ash is bellowing something I can’t make out from all the sounds in my head.

Then silence.

Nothing at all.

Just the dark, and the sense of falling, and the certainty that when we wake—if we wake—nothing will ever be the same again.