38. Cain
Cain
The clock on the mantelpiece ticks with a periodic precision that sounds like a mechanical heartbeat—the only one in this room that isn’t heavy with the staggering burden of mortality.
I dip my fountain pen into the inkwell, the black liquid shimmering like oil under the desk lamp.
One more sigil. One more line of the incantation.
Tomorrow is June’s twenty-first birthday.
I can smell the change in the air already.
A metallic scent that precedes a storm. Our eternal freedom is finally within reach, a shimmering horizon no longer obscured by the fog of waiting.
Years of discipline, of hiding in the shadows of this stagnant town, of playing the part of the cold, eccentric recluse, it all funnels down to the next twenty-four hours.
But as the alignment nears, my skin feels tight, a prickling paranoia crawling up my spine that has nothing to do with the Ritual and everything to do with my brother.
Julian isn’t excited. I can feel his dread from across the hall, a low-frequency hum of anxiety and disapproval that sets my teeth on edge and vibrates through the floorboards.
He’s lost himself. He’s let his eyes fall away from the true purpose of our existence, blinded by the soft, useless light of human affection.
I’ve been watching them.
The Ritual requires a steady hand and a detached will.
Julian is currently a man possessed. He thinks he’s helping her, but he’s really just anchoring himself to a sinking ship.
I’ve spent the last few days monitoring the security feeds, watching the way he hovers over her, the way his hand lingers on the small of her back.
He’s not guarding a sacrifice; he’s guarding a heart he’s already stolen—and in doing so, he’s putting decades of planning at risk.
I distrust him now. More than I ever have.
He is no longer my twin; he is a stranger I can no longer calculate.
Do I feel guilty about having to kill her?
No. Does that make me a monster? Perhaps.
But a monster with an eternity of perspective is still a god compared to a man with a lifetime of regret.
Julian has centre-staged June in his life far more than the Ritual ever required.
I tried to warn him that he was building a house on sand, that a wolf doesn’t love its prey.
But Julian has forgotten he’s a wolf. He thinks he’s her saviour.
He thinks that by marking his chest with her name, he can somehow bargain with the shadows.
It’s a fool’s hope.
I know I’ll have hell to deal with once the blade is drawn and the Ritual is sealed. Julian will break, his heart has grown too soft, a bruised fruit clinging to a dying vine. I see the way he looks at me—the simmering resentment, the lethal protective instinct directed at me.
If the lore holds, June will be back in some form, eventually.
Maybe in a decade, maybe in a millennium.
I almost hope Julian does forget her. That he moves on and lets her live her next life away from our poisonous hands.
But knowing him, and knowing myself, that will never happen, we will haunt her soul across every cycle of her life.
I will be the one to hold the knife. I will be the one to bear the weight of the act so he can keep his hands “clean” in his own delusional mind. But make no mistake—his soul is just as stained.
I lean back in my leather chair, a slow, cold smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as the proximity of the Ritual brings Thomas back to the forefront of my mind.
It’s sparked memories I would rather keep buried under the floorboards of the old garden shed, yet there is a certain sweetness in remembering how wrong he was.
Thomas. The boy who thought he was the architect just because he found the blueprints.
I can still hear his voice, dripping with that arrogant, older-cousin condescension.
“You’re nothing without me, Cain,” he’d sneer, looming over me in the shadows of that damp shed.
“This Ritual will only ever be a dream to you without my hand to guide yours. You’re weak. You need me.”
I was young then, and for a time, I actually believed him.
I let his poison settle in my bones, mistaking his recklessness for mastery.
But as the months bled into years, that belief curdled into a silent, simmering resentment.
I watched him fumble with the bindings; I saw the weakness in his “strength.” I knew, even back then, that one day I would prove to him exactly how powerless he was.
He ruined everything for himself in the end, but he nearly took it all away from me, too.
I remember the night everything shattered.
Thomas had been fuming for weeks. I’d been sneaking out—not to meet him.
I was meeting Katie. She was… different.
She had perfect golden brown hair that caught the light even in the dim shadows of the local park where we hid.
For the first time in my life, I felt something that wasn’t emptiness.
It was a strange, terrifying warmth. I never told Thomas about her, but he knew.
He always knew when I was hiding something.
That night, he told me he’d found the shortcut. The sacrifice was tonight. He didn’t tell me where we were going, just led me through the back alleys until we reached a house I didn’t recognise.
“Put it on,” he hissed, shoving the balaclava into my hands. “And take this.” He handed me a hunting knife. “If I tell you to do something, you fucking listen, Cain. No hesitations.”
We broke in through the basement. The air was stale, smelling of laundry detergent and black mould.
My heart was thumping against my ribs as we moved into the main house.
We crept down a hallway lined with framed pictures.
I didn’t look at them. I didn’t want to know whose life we were about to take.
We stepped into a bedroom at the end of the hall. The curtains were thin, letting in enough moonlight to see a figure huddled under a duvet, facing the wall. All I could see was a spill of golden brown hair across the pillow.
A familiar shade.
I looked at the bedside table. There was a photo of her—Katie—smiling with her little brother and sister.
My stomach dropped. Thomas saw the realisation hit me.
He stepped closer, his eye peeking through the balaclava.
I grabbed his arm, my hand trembling as I tried to pull him back—a silent plea for him to stop.
I begged and pleaded with my eyes.
Thomas just looked at me. His eyes were wide and filled with a malicious, evil glee I will never forget. He leaned in, whispering so softly it was barely a breath: “I told you to stop choosing her over me.”
He attacked.
I tried to fight him. I threw myself at his back, clawing at his shoulders, but Thomas was possessed by a frantic, unnatural strength. He threw me off like I was a child. I hit the floor hard, the wind knocked out of me, and I had to watch.
I had to watch the only person who had ever made me feel alive, get slaughtered by my own flesh and blood.
Her screams weren’t like the movies. They were fear filled and desperate as she choked and suffocated on her own blood. Then came the heavy thuds from down the hall—her parents.
“Katie?” a man’s voice called out, panicked. “Katie, what’s happening?”
I didn’t wait. I couldn’t. I scrambled to my feet, the knife Thomas gave me clattering to the floor. I bolted out of the room, my vision blurred by tears I refused to let fall.
“Fucking stop!” Thomas bellowed from inside the room, his voice seeping with rage. “Stop or I’ll fucking kill you too, Cain! Get back here!”
I didn’t stop. I ran through the house, stumbling over furniture, and burst through the front door into the night air. Just as my feet hit the pavement, a chorus of screams erupted from inside—the parents finding what was left of their daughter.
I never saw Thomas again after that night. The police, the sirens, the trial… I stayed in the shadows. He vanished into the system, and I hope to God he stays there until the day he dies. A nicer end than he deserves.