Chapter 24 The Present #2
If she’s just a soul, like me, then her power should have limits. And I couldn’t figure it out—why she kept getting stronger every time we faced her. But now I get it.
She’s feeding off the pain.
And there’s no shortage of that around here, is there?
Worse?
I probably gave her more than anyone.
I open my eyes.
The room tilts slightly, like it’s leaning toward the grief seeping into the floorboards. My breath clouds the air. Everything in me is screaming run, regroup—but I don’t. I stay where I am, body shaking, heart pounding in the hollow of my chest.
“You’re not some immortal monster with divine upgrades,” I say, staring into those endless black eyes. “You’re just a fucking trauma leech.”
She fed on my past. On Cassian’s. Hell, I think she’s feeding on the grief hanging in this room just by breathing it in.
I was her prime target because of how much suffering I carry. Because of what I am.
A Grim Reaper.
We’re steeped in pain, even before death. All of us were murdered. All of us are victims. And all of us chose to remember the pain—so we could return it to the one who gave it to us.
That’s what draws the wraith to us.
We’re the perfect lure. A little unstable. A little broken. And so goddamn haunted.
Every bit of struggle we feel, we radiate. She senses it. Gets pulled to it like it’s gravity.
And Death already confirmed it. She’ll keep hunting Reapers.
She’ll circle forever, devouring everything until there’s nothing left.
Unless I stop her.
I grip the dagger tighter, jaw clenched, every muscle in my body pulled so tight I feel like I might snap.
“You’re a fucking abomination,” I tell her. “You shouldn’t exist.”
She just smiles.
“Oh? Does that hurt?”
She moves.
Fast.
In the blink of an eye, she’s on me—claws aimed for my throat—but I don’t retreat. I step in. I let her hit. Her claws tear through the edges of me, but I twist the dagger and drive it straight into the center of her shadowed chest.
The scream that erupts from her isn’t sound.
It’s memory.
My memory.
Every horrible moment I’ve ever lived—my own death, the cold fingers around my throat, the betrayal, the suffocating loneliness of the afterlife, the look on Mark’s face when he saw the ravens on my willow tree.
It all slams into me at once, like a thousand flashbacks detonating behind my eyes.
I stumble—but this time, she stumbles with me.
She’s feeding.
I am pain. I’m exactly what she wants.
But just because she wants me... doesn’t mean she can survive me.
Because I’m not just haunted. I’m cracked wide fucking open. I’ve lived with this rot inside me for so long I know every inch of it. It’s layered. Twisted. Drenched in rage, guilt, and the weight of every soul I’ve ever touched.
So if she feeds on pain, then let’s see if she can handle more than she’s ever tasted.
I stop fighting the ache in my chest and let it rise. Wave after wave. Everything I’ve buried, every wound that never healed, every word I never said. I bring it all forward. I weaponize it.
“This what you want?” I whisper. “This what you’ve been chasing all along?”
I feel her latch on, pulled to me like a magnet to heat and horror. She wants to consume it, like she always does, but I’m not offering scraps this time.
I’m serving a goddamn feast.
“Take it,” I say. “Take all of it. Choke on it.”
My ribs ache like every breath carries a thousand ghosts. My skin buzzes with old bruises. My soul tears wide open, and through that rip pours everything I’ve held in just to survive.
All of it.
My loneliness.
My fear.
My jealousy.
My thirst for revenge.
I don’t stop. I keep going.
And she reels.
The wraith jerks back, her smoky form flickering like a film melting in the projector. Her claws twitch. Her voice catches. She’s still tethered to me, still drinking from the well of my pain, but I bet it burns going down.
I sway on my feet, holding the dagger tight. It hums in time with my pulse. My body shakes. I’m bleeding from my shoulder, but I don’t care.
I’m done running. Done being afraid of what I’ve been through.
“It’s a lot, huh?” I say, stepping toward her as her form spasms. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”
She tries to vanish, tries to flicker out into shadow, but I don’t let her. I grab hold of the tether between us, yanking it like a leash.
It strains.
I push harder.
So hard I have to grip the dagger with both hands and force out the last of its power.
Her scream rises.
Her voice cuts through the noise. Desperate. Ugly. “Make it stop.”
“No,” I whisper. “Not until you take every last piece.”
The tether twists.
Then snaps.
Her scream vanishes with her. There is no grand explosion, no cosmic shatter. Just a tear in space where she hovered, like she was never meant to exist. Like this was what Death wanted me to understand all along.
Not how to kill her.
How to starve her.
Feed her something she couldn’t hold.
I drop to my knees.
The dagger clatters to the ground beside me, my fingers too numb to keep holding it.
I’ve been tired before, but this… this is different.
There’s nothing left in me.
And that’s when I hear the front doors creak open downstairs. A moment later, two figures appear behind me—Nathaniel and Talon.
One of them picks up the dagger from the floor. The other crouches down and lifts me up gently.
I look at them. My lips part—to say she’s gone, or I’m okay, or I did it—but nothing comes out.
Then I see the teenager. He’s with them too.
And the way he looks at me…
He knows.
His eyes shimmer, like candlelight.
“It’s all okay now,” he says.
And I don’t know why, but somehow…
That makes it all feel worth it.