Chapter 1 #2
Miles was the one who told me I should go back to school. “Something to keep your hands busy so you don’t go digging in graveyards for fun,” he’d said. He wasn’t wrong. I study art history now. I sketch when I can’t sleep. Graveyards mostly, but sometimes fire, and eyes I can’t forget.
Finn’s eyes.
Finn, who could recite the old chants in the dark without looking at the book. Who knew how to draw salt symbols that made the air feel heavy. Who kissed me in the candlelight like I was both the sacrifice and the priestess.
We were twenty when the cult made their move on me.
I wasn’t supposed to know what was happening, I was just the girl they needed for the offering, the one born under the right moon with the right bloodline.
But Finn knew. He’d been raised in it. Groomed for it.
He told me the truth one night with his hands shaking on my face that they were going to give me to the dark at harvest.
He swore he wouldn’t let them, and he didn’t.
Instead, he took my place. He killed all of them. Every one of them who had taken part in it.
Who had touched my skin.
He dragged me from the altar, cut the ropes from my wrists, kissed me once like it was goodbye, and stepped into the circle and marked himself with the sacrificial symbol.
I remember screaming his name. Remember the heavy scent of iron and smoke, the shadows crawling up his body like they wanted to eat him whole.
He looked back at me through it, eyes steady and shoved the blade into his own chest.
I swore I’d never let another touch that hollow, that no one could ever reach the place in me he would leave behind, and then, he was gone.
Pulled down into the dark by hands I couldn’t see.
That was a year ago today, and still, sometimes, I swear I feel him close. Like the air shifts in certain places. Like the world holds its breath, for him.
October 29th – Night
By the time I get home from class, the sun’s dropping low over the crooked rooftops, bleeding pink and gold into the cracked pavement.
My apartment door sticks like always, the wood swollen from years of damp autumns.
Inside, the air smells faintly of sage smoke and melted wax.
The light is soft here, catching on the mismatched furniture, the stacks of sketchbooks piled on the floor.
In the corner, on the vanity I dragged home from a thrift store, sit the only things I managed to salvage from what was left of him—his hoodie and an empty cologne bottle.
After the police raided and gutted the property, turning over drawers, tearing up floorboards, most of it was left to rot or was burned to the ground.
Weeks later, I went back. I told myself it was just to see, to know for sure, but really, I was searching.
Hunting for anything that still had him on it.
His house was a hollow shell by then. The windows blackened, walls scorched.
Every room smelled like ash and wet earth.
But in the wreckage of his bedroom, shoved into the back of a half-collapsed wardrobe, I found it, one of his old hoodies.
Black. Frayed at the cuffs. Sleeves too long from years of wear.
And in the bathroom, on the cracked tile by the sink, I found the cologne bottle. The glass was scuffed, the silver cap bent, and it had spilled across the floor in the chaos. Somehow, there was still a little left inside. Just enough.
For months, I kept that bottle close on sleepless nights. I’d uncap it in the dark, breathing him in—cedar, clove, and something I could never quite name. Something that felt like the shadow of a heartbeat against my skin.
Now, the scent is gone. The bottle sits empty on my vanity like a relic. A treasure from a life burned out of existence.
I pull the hoodie over my head without thinking, just needing to feel him, even in this small, impossible way. It swallows me whole, drowning me in worn fabric and memory, and still carries the faintest trace of his scent. Faded, but there.
I strip it off after a moment, laying it gently over the chair. Tonight, I can’t hide in him.
Tonight, I need armor.
I strip out of my clothes piece by piece, letting them puddle on the cold tile.
My boots thud against the wall where I kick them off, socks following, cardigan sliding from my shoulders like shed skin.
The mirror catches me in fragments—hips, collarbone, hair in disarray—and I look away before I can start picking myself apart.
The shower hisses to life when I twist the knob, pipes rattling like old bones. Steam climbs fast, thickening the air, frosting the edges of the mirror until I disappear.
That’s better.
The water drums steady against my back, heat working into my shoulders until it feels less like comfort and more like penance.
Steam swirls heavy in the small bathroom, fogging the mirror, curling around my face like phantom fingers.
I tilt my head back, let the spray sluice over my scalp, down my throat, across skin that still feels too tight for me to live in.
I scrub harder than I need to. Soap dragging across arms, ribs, thighs until the lather runs thin.
Like I can scrape off everything clinging to me, memories, mistakes, the shadow of his voice saying my name in the places I can’t stop hearing it.
My hair sticks damp to my face. My eyes sting, but I won’t call it crying.
When the water starts cooling, I turn the knob off with a squeal in the pipes.
The sudden silence is louder than the spray.
I push the curtain aside and step out. My skin is flushed pink, water running in lines down my calves, my collarbone.
I wrap myself in a towel and stand still, breathing, letting the heat bleed out of me, watching it curl away like something leaving.
I pat myself dry slow, like each pass of the towel is pulling me back into the present. The terry cloth is rough against my arms, my legs, dragging goosebumps to the surface. I twist the towel around my hair until it sits heavy at the nape of my neck, a warm weight that drips down my spine.
In the mirror, I catch my own gaze. No hiding tonight.
The dress goes on first—black with pale, faded roses, the skirt swaying soft against my thighs.
Over-the-knee socks in inky black leave a strip of bare skin just above my knee before the hem of the dress takes over.
The leather jacket is next, snug and worn in all the right places.
My thrifted boots are heavy, with gold buckles that glint when they catch the light, scuffed from years of wear.
My hair is blunt, chin-length, black as coal, parted sharp down the middle.
My makeup is precise—thick, dark liner fanning out at the corners of my eyes, mascara making my lashes shadow-heavy.
My lipstick is a muted plum, more bruise than berry, just enough to make my mouth look like it might taste dangerous.
The mirror throws me back at myself. A girl wrapped in black and roses, dressed like she belongs to the night. Rings on every finger. Shoulders squared. Smile tucked away. I look like someone who could belong anywhere, when the truth is I belong nowhere.
My phone is charging by the couch, my sketchbook open on the coffee table to the page I left it on—charcoal lines shaping the hollow of his cheekbone, the cut of his mouth. Miles says
I’m obsessed. He’s not wrong.
That’s when I feel it.
That shift.
Like the air’s been peeled back a layer and the cold has teeth. The kind of change that doesn’t come from a draft or a bad bulb. This is older, stranger.
I turn toward the window, pinching the curtain between my fingers as I peer out into the night.
A crow is perched on the railing outside, its feathers so black they almost drink the light. One gleaming eye fixed on me. It doesn’t move. Doesn’t call. Just watches.
My chest tightens. Because I know what this means.
The veil is thinning.
Most people think that’s just a Halloween story. The veil between the living and the dead wearing thin at the end of October letting spirits cross over. But I know better. It’s not just spirits. It’s everything. Every dark thing that’s been waiting on the other side for a way back in.
Not yet , I think, staring the crow down. Please, not yet .
It cocks its head like it heard me. Then it spreads its wings, vanishing into the gathering dark.
Nathan’s car glides to the curb, headlights cutting through the fog in pale, silvery spears.
I let the curtain slip from my fingers, shutting out the sight of him, and the street beyond. My heartbeat feels like it’s trying to crawl up my throat.
The candle on the counter flickers once before I snuff it, plunging the room into shadow.
Bag over my shoulder. Keys in hand.
The lock clicks home behind me.
Time to walk straight into whatever the night’s waiting to feed me to.