Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
I hadn’t slept in days.
Every time I closed my eyes, I heard it. The sound of water dripping. Steady, rhythmic, endless. I had checked my sink, my shower, even the damn pipes in the walls. There was nothing. No leak, no source. But it never stopped.
But it wasn’t real. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. Right?
I kept telling myself that, the same way I told myself that the ritual had worked. The same way I reassured myself that Lilith was gone. Banished. Done.
I hadn’t seen her since that night. No more flickering shadows, no more whispering in my ear, no more icy fingers on my skin. I should’ve felt relieved, but the silence wasn’t comforting. It was suffocating.
And then there were the messages.
At first, I thought it was a prank. A cruel joke, someone trying to get inside my head. But the number was always unknown, and no matter how many times I blocked it, the messages kept coming.
She’s waiting. Why did you leave her? You belonged with her too.
But it couldn’t be her. It couldn’t.
I stopped checking my phone. Stopped looking in mirrors, too, after I caught my reflection whispering something my lips hadn’t moved to say.
I told myself it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. The ritual had worked. Right?
Until tonight.
I turned the corner to my dorm room and stopped cold. The door was open.
I never left my door open.
My chest tightened as I stepped inside, pulse hammering. The air felt thick, suffocating. My bed was still made, my desk undisturbed, but something was wrong. Something was watching me.
The door creaked behind me. I turned.
Kael stood there, framed in the doorway, smiling.
I stumbled back, hitting my desk, my breath stuck in my throat.
“You—”
His head tilted, his smile widening. “You don’t have to run, Aeron.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. My instincts screamed at me to bolt, to fight, but my body wouldn’t move.
Kael stepped inside, slow and deliberate, shutting the door behind him. “She’s already here.”
A chill crawled down my spine. “You’re insane.”
His expression softened, like he pitied me. “No. I see clearly now. And soon, so will you.”
I lunged for the door. Kael moved quicker.
I twisted, throwing a desperate punch at his face. He dodged, barely, my fist grazing his cheekbone. His smile never wavered.
“Good,” he murmured. “Fight. It’ll make it sweeter when you understand.”
I barely had time to react before he retaliated. His fist crashed into my ribs, knocking the air from my lungs. Pain bloomed through my side, but I forced myself to move.
I shoved him back, grabbing the nearest object—a lamp from my desk—and swung it at his head. Kael ducked, catching my wrist before I could bring it down again. His grip was iron. He twisted sharply, pain jolting up my arm as the lamp clattered to the floor.
“Let me go, you psycho!” I snarled, struggling against him.
He only sighed. “You don’t get it yet.”
I reeled my head back and slammed it forward, smashing my forehead into his nose. He grunted, staggering back. Blood trickled from his nostril, but his eyes… his eyes shone with something disturbingly close to admiration.
“You’re making this difficult,” he mused, wiping the blood away with the back of his hand. Then he surged forward, slamming me into the wall.
My skull cracked against the plaster, my vision swimming. I gasped, the world tilting.
Kael exhaled, almost… regretful. “You can’t meet her looking like this.”
His fist connected with the side of my head. The world flickered to black.
I woke to the scent of mildew and dust.
Blinking against the dim lighting, I tried to move, but my limbs felt heavy, my body sluggish. My fingers curled against the sensation of crisp fabric beneath them. Not my sheets.
My pulse kicked up, and as I shifted, I felt it—the weight of stiff fabric draped over my shoulders, buttoned tight around my neck.
I was wearing a suit.
Panic surged within me, and I forced my head up. The theater. I was in the theater.
Kael knelt beside me, his fingers adjusting the cuffs of my jacket, his expression one of quiet satisfaction. “Much better,” he murmured. “You almost looked unworthy.”
I jerked back, muscles straining against the exhaustion in my limbs. “What the hell?—”
Kael caught my chin in his hand, tilting my face toward him with a gentleness that made my skin crawl. “Shh,” he soothed. “You don’t have to be afraid.”
I tried to shove him off, but my body was still sluggish, still too weak. What had he done to me?
“Please,” I rasped. “Don’t do this.”
Kael sighed, running his thumb along my jaw as if considering my words. Then, slowly, he reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew something delicate—a single dead flower.
He tucked it into my lapel with care, brushing invisible dust from the petals. “Now she’ll recognize you.”
Terror clamped down on my throat. I thrashed, trying to break free, but Kael was already lifting the blade.
The cold press of steel kissed my skin.
“I won’t let you stain your final look,” Kael murmured, pressing a folded towel beneath my chin.
The knife slid across my throat.
Pain, heat, the sudden wetness of blood spilling down my chest, soaking into the towel. My body convulsed, my vision tilting as darkness clawed at the edges.
And just before it consumed me, I saw her.
Lilith.
She stood at the edge of the stage, smiling.
Waiting.
I existed before I realized I existed.
There was no pain. No breath, no heartbeat. Just awareness.
I blinked, but my body didn’t move. Because it wasn’t mine anymore.
Kael crouched in front of me, adjusting the flower in my lapel, smiling like he’d just completed a masterpiece.
“There. Now she’ll forgive you.”
I tried to speak, tried to move, but I was frozen in place, trapped in the suit, in the body he had dressed for her.
Kael stood back, admiring his work, hands resting on his knees. “You know, you should be grateful,” he mused. “She could’ve let you rot the way we left her. But she’s generous. She wanted you to look perfect.”
Kael dusted off his hands, then turned to face the darkness stretching across the stage.
“Lilith,” he called softly, reverently. “I brought him home.”
A breath of cold air caressed my cheek, colder than death itself. And then, from the shadows, her whisper curled around me like silk, sealing my fate.
“I know.”