Chapter 46 - Nicole
Nicole
Fear swallows me like a monster that’s been circling for days but hadn’t managed to grab hold of me until now.
My legs buckle, and I plunge straight into terror the moment I see blood tears streaming from Gaetano’s eyes.
A foreign energy radiates from his entire being. That can’t mean anything good.
He rises as if he doesn’t feel any pain. In the next instant, the tears evaporate from his face, drops turning to steam, and I blink, wondering if I imagined them.
The brief warmth of his touch on my bare shoulder is like electricity. It jolts through me, but it doesn’t bring peace.
“It’s time to harvest,” he says, his voice woven from the source of all nightmares.
I freeze, watching him approach the crowd. His posture exudes the same threatening energy that made my skin crawl when we first met. The crowd feels it too. A deathly silence falls, broken only by the somber chords of an invisible piano echoing through the space like a funeral hymn.
I shudder from an unexplained cold, yet I can’t stop looking at Gaetano. His eyes are black—no light, no trace of humanity left.
And then he smiles. The menace vanishes. His gaze brightens again, but with that vibrant fire that promises spectacle, excitement, and a shiver down your spine. Still my heart keeps pounding as if death itself is after me. Calm down. It’s just the role of the Black Joker.
“Thank you, bella. I’ll take it from here,” he says to the illusion holding the mic. “It’s time to reward our Black Jokers. You didn’t think there would be just one, did you?”
The temperature in the room rises by at least fifteen degrees, melting the tension on the guests’ faces. They start buzzing again, whispering, checking their cards.
Eleven people step forward. These are the ones who gave him their blood and spoke the summoning spell. The first eleven. There could be more victims, but he doesn’t need the rest.
I try to make out their features through the adrenaline blurring my vision. All I see are black-and-white silhouettes of people already lost.
“My friends,” he says to the lucky ones, “do me the honor of playing one more game before the prizes. Do we have a deal?”
Someone whistles. The crowd erupts in a unanimous roar: “Yesssss!”
Gaetano smirks. “Wonderful. Before we begin… are all the Black Jokers here?” He sweeps his gaze across the room.
I’m one of the few standing apart. My eyes drift down to the crumpled, damp card in my hand. The picture of The Baroness has changed into The Black Joker—a tall figure dressed in dark clothing, with a blank face.
It’s part of our plan, and yet my insides tremble. When I look up again, Gaetano is staring straight at me. Time to play my part. No one would suspect a thing if I were to vanish along with the others.
With leaden legs, I move toward him, pushing through the crowd to take my place in the circle around Gaetano and the other Jokers.
I stand in front of the real Black Joker, and my heart skips a beat.
This is the man who stared deep into my soul…
and liked what he saw. He made me believe my worth came from no one but myself. I’d do anything for him.
“Surprise, I’m a Black Joker, too,” I say, raising my card for the others to see.
Gaetano gives a slight nod and gestures for me to join. “Then you have every right to compete for tonight’s grand prize.”
I step in among the other men and women. My stomach knots as I recognize Evelin standing next to me.
She leans in, her breath tinged with alcohol. “No idea what’s happening, but I’m drunk, and he’s hot,” she whispers, waving her card.
“Pretty sure we’re about to play something… or whatever,” mutters the woman on my other side, someone I don’t even know.
“Great. Hope it involves dancing!”
“Before anything else,” Gaetano says with a wink, “I want each of you to read what’s written on the back of your Black Joker card.”
We all flip our cards over, while the rest of the crowd—at least those in front—struggle to peek. I read the first words:
CONTRACT FOR A WISH IN EXCHANGE FOR THREE TRIALS
I don’t read the rest. Even though my role is just for cover, an invisible vise keeps tightening around my throat, choking the breath out of me.
Next to me, Evelin dismisses the contract with a dramatic wave of her wrist and laughs. “I’m way too drunk to read this. Give me another game.”
At my ear, I hear the theatrical voice of someone I vaguely know. “Ohhhh… I’m shaking…”
Someone else pulls out their phone. “Sick. I’m filming this.”
Gaetano lifts his hand, palm up, fingers slicing through the air as if parting it. I recognize the magic taking shape the moment the air thickens again. His eyes meet mine. I need him to pull me into his arms and whisper that it will all be over soon. That everything will be all right.
What I read in his expression is something entirely different. A final warning: You’ll see things that will haunt you for the rest of your life. A cold wave surges from my chest to the back of my neck.
He projects his voice through the crowd. “The contracts are now in effect. And the first trial… is to endure till the end.”
The lights go out, and darkness swallows the entire space.
Someone screams, “There’s something down there!”
Another person bursts into drunken laughter as I glance down.
A red mist creeps across the floor, slithering between our legs like smoke, wrapping around my ankles, sliding up my thighs.
Its warmth is unsettling, like something alive beneath the surface.
And then come the whispers. They rise from the ceiling, the floor, the corners of the room, the mist itself carrying them.
Different voices—male, female, young, old.
All chillingly soft, whispering inside my skull, yet somehow also everywhere.
You never regretted blaming your best friend, did you?
You posted the video out of spite. You knew she’d kill herself if she saw it.
You killed his dog just to get back at him…
Everyone’s spinning around, looking for the source. All that’s visible are silhouettes shrouded in red smoke.
You didn’t tell anyone you saw him fall. You just let it happen.
Your mother still believes it wasn’t you, doesn’t she?
Someone screams again. The fog at our feet thickens, crawling like sentient flesh, seeping into shoes, clothes, and skin.
“Where the hell is the door?!”
You never loved him. He was just… convenient.
“I want to leave!”
You sleep soundly because someone else took the blame for you.
You deleted her messages, didn’t you? So no one would know what you did to her.
Cold slithers down my spine. The words aren’t meant for me, but the guilt in them weighs on me as if it’s mine.
A woman’s scream cuts through the whispers. “Stop it!”
Panic spreads like a virus. People start bumping into each other, trying to break free from the circle. The chaos and dim lighting create a bottleneck of crashing bodies.
As the crowd shifts, I somehow find myself in the center and lose sight of Gaetano.
Everyone is surging toward a door I’m pretty sure no longer exists.
This gives me the chance to slip through the mass of bodies and reach the other side of the room.
I press myself against the wall and scan the space, searching for Gaetano.
But I don’t see him. Maybe he’s blended in with the crowd…
The mass of people suddenly recoils, forming a ring around a woman screaming and clutching her head. I think she’s one of Ina Stein’s friends. The crowd backs away in unison. It’s as if an invisible dome has risen above her.
“It’s not true! It’s not true!” she shrieks. “Stop, please. I want to go. I want to!”
Gaetano appears—a black silhouette towering above her. The red fog sharpens his features, intensifying the sense of danger radiating from him. If Death had a human form, it would probably look like this.
I clutch the dagger around my thigh as my chest rises and falls erratically.
His lips move, but I can’t hear what he’s saying over the noise and the pounding in my ears. He extends his hand and grips her shoulder. The woman stiffens, her mouth opening in a silent cry. At the center of her chest, a swirling ball of black mist forms.
Her body convulses. A shriek echoes in my ears. I don’t know if it’s real or just in my head. I press my back to the wall for support, fighting the urge to collapse.
The woman’s face begins to wither, shrinking as black threads peel from her cheeks like melting skin.
I cover my mouth to stifle a scream. Her body unravels, dissolving into the same dark strands as her face.
Her clothes crumple to the ground, the only remaining proof that a person once stood in that spot.
Something white and shapeless flickers in the dim light. It must be her soul. Gaetano reaches out and seizes it. His touch drains its color, transforming it into a black shadow that extends from his hand.
And then, almost as if he’s known my exact location all along, he lifts his head and stares at me. Those bottomless obsidian eyes stab straight through my solar plexus, and I’m thrown back to the days when I was Harvest 290. My knees weaken again. Trust him, my heart whispers.
Even though my mind is screaming at me to run, I don’t look away.
I simply nod. Then, the suffocating silence pressing on the room finally reaches me.
For a moment, I think it’s all over. Then I realize that the people are still moving.
They stumble, scramble, try to escape, arms flailing, bodies crashing into each other in panic.
Yet their mouths are wide open… and no sound comes out.
Gaetano turns to the crowd with the confident tone of someone who already knows the answer. “Is there anyone else who wishes to give up the trial?”
The chaos explodes like a bomb of muffled screams, hysteria, and limbs smashing into walls and each other. An unseen wave of terror spreads through the space. People run in erratic directions, tripping, falling, then getting up, some sobbing, others laughing wildly.
Gaetano moves through them with ease, as if the crowd parts to let him pass. Sometimes he stops in front of someone, leans in, whispers, and collapses them. Soul after soul detaches, and he catches them, leaving only crumpled clothes on the floor. And memories of people who once were.
I remain rooted in place, my hands clawing into the wall behind me. My throat feels dry, and my heart pounds so hard it hurts.
Six souls taken.
Gaetano pays no attention to the others in the crowd.
Seven. Eight. Souls claimed.
With each soul, he appears less and less human. His bones seem to stretch, skin pulled taut, and the shadows surrounding him grow darker.
Nine.
I hold my breath, biting the inside of my mouth. The taste of blood floods my tongue.
Ten.
My pulse crashes into my skull. One more soul, and it’s done. Just one more…
Gaetano halts under his dark dome. His figure seems to shrink as he hunches forward. The shadows writhe like mist around him, struggling to escape the grip of his clenched fist.
He stays there for several seconds—seconds that stretch into eternity. A thousand thoughts race through my mind. Did something go wrong? Is there no eleventh contract? Did he change his mind?
He straightens slowly and faces me, locating me above the crowd. My pulse slams in my temples with each step he takes toward me. An instant later, he stands before me, stealing my breath.
The shadows reach for me—a plea to be saved. I’m sorry, I whisper inside. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
He stares at me for a long moment, as if I’m a stranger he’s trying to recall. A faint glimmer sparks in his eyes, like a small ember of the soul that once matched mine.
But it vanishes just as fast as my hope for a life with him.
Now only the Black Joker remains before me. Bitterness rises in my throat, mingled with the blood from my bitten lips.
The truth roots itself in my chest. It seeps through me in the manner of a slow, corrosive acid, destroying me from the inside out. An intense sorrow floods every part of me, tearing me apart.
The final soul…
Will be mine.
I am Harvest 290.
I’m just the last one to be taken.
He reaches for me.