Chapter 18 THE MIRROR
THE MIRROR
A madman he had become for Beth Fraser.
“You look like shit,” Zaghan mused, flicking open his zippo and igniting the cigarette fixed between his lips. The chains around his legs rattled with every movement.
The flame from the cigarette cast a flickering shadow against his face, carving out the edges of his malicious grin.
He exhaled a slow plume of smoke, watching his twin brother, Callan, through the curling tendrils.
Callan didn’t respond to Zaghan right away. But his eyes, dark and rimmed with exhaustion, remain fixed on his brother from across the dimly lit room.
Shadows pulled in the corners, thick like oil, pressing in.
“I know,” Callan finally murmured, his voice raw and drained.
Zaghan shifted against the chair he was sitting on, stretching his limbs with lazy amusement, the cigarette still clenched between his lips, the chains that still held him down chinking.
“Give me control.” Another exhale of smoke, deliberate and taunting.
He knew how much Callan hated the scent, the way it seeped into everything, suffocating. The disease it could cause.
“No.” Callan’s answer to his request was curt and clipped.
Zaghan’s jaw tensed. “At this rate, you’re going to work yourself to death.”
Callan dragged a hand down his face, the weight of exhaustion clinging to him like wet clothes. “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to die.”
Zaghan stilled at the careless way his brother was throwing around the idea of dying. The smile on his face faded, but only slightly.
“Well, I do not want you to die, Callan.” Something bitter and curdled festered beneath Zaghan’s voice. “I can not possess a fucking dead body.”
Callan didn’t argue. Because it was true.
He was the reason Zaghan existed only in the periphery, a phantom caged inside his mind.
If not for him, Zaghan would have been born whole, with his own flesh, his own body, his own will.
Instead, he was trapped, a parasite without a host, a shadow without a shape of its own.
“What are you afraid of, brother?” Zaghan asked. “That you’d rather work yourself to the brink than let me out for a moment?”
Callan shifted his gaze to his brother, something cold flickering in it.
“You.” A pause. Then, quieter, but heavy with meaning.
“Because the moment you sensed her, you saw a prey. And she’s no prey, Zaghan.
She’s not a game for you to hunt, not another body for you to carve into.
I won’t let you touch her. She’s not yours. She’s mine.”
Zaghan’s smile vanished entirely, his jaw pulled taut.
Her.
The reason he had been caged unfairly was her. That fragile little thing.
Zaghan’s fingers twitched against his thigh, nails pressing into his skin. He had suspected it before, but hearing Callan confirm it sent something venomous slithering through his gut. Who the hell was this girl? Where did she come from? What gave her the right to interfere in his existence?
He wanted to find her. Tear her apart just to see what made her so special. Just to see what would break first, her mind or her body.
“So, you’re denying me my right because of her?” His voice was low, edged with something sharp.
Callan scoffed, brow lifted. “Your right?” His head tilted back against the couch, his lid heavy. “Since when did borrowing my body become your right?”
“Since you turned me into a ghost with no flesh?” Zaghan’s words were laced with venom, years of suppressed rage and grudge. “Since you killed me before I even had a chance to be born.”
Callan exhaled through his nose, threading his fingers through his hair in frustration. “For how long are you going to keep using this against me, Zaghan?”
Zaghan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, cigarette burning between his fingers. “For as long as I don’t have a flesh of my own.”
Silence stretched between the two brothers, thick with tension and the acrid scent of smoke.
Zaghan broke it first. “I’m tired of being locked away.
” His voice was softer, but no less dangerous.
“I need to stretch. I need to hunt. And most of all, I need to help you look for the ledger, since you clearly haven’t figured out a way.
And I can’t do this without a fucking body, so why don’t you quit being stubborn and let me have control? ”
Callan let his head roll to the side, observing his ever deceptive brother with deadened eyes. “I’m not giving you control, Zaghan. Not anytime soon, actually.”
Zaghan inhaled sharply, jaw working. Callan may be weak-minded, easily manipulated. But it was no lie that he was also a very stubborn fellow. And whatever spell the girl had cast on him was quite strong. He would not break easily at this point. Not with a brute force, at least.
“I won’t touch her,” Zaghan said smoothly. But it was a lie. He would touch her. He would break her. That fragile thing that interrupted his existence? Oh, he would kill her.
“Since when have you ever done what I wanted, Zaghan?”
Zaghan smirked. “Since I became desperate.” He stubbed out his cigarette, crushing the embers on the glass coffee table. “I’m giving you my word, now. I won’t touch her. I won’t go looking for her. I won’t even think about her.”
All were such lies.
Callan studied him, deliberating. Zaghan was a pathological liar, a manipulative bastard. To trust him was a foolish and thoughtless decision. But there was also a fact that he was exhausted, bones aching, mind fraying at the edges.
Then there was the weight of Elizabeth that was also quite unbearable. She was in his thoughts, under his skin, clawing at him from the inside. Staying away from her was the most difficult thing he had ever had to do in his life.
He was like an addict resisting a pull of his next fix at this point. The craving for her had become insidious, burrowing into his bones, whispering to him in quiet moments before sleep took over.
It had been a week since he saw her last, seven days since she told him to stop coming.
But even then, it had already been too late.
She was already in his bloodstream, an intoxicant more potent that any drug he had ever known.
The longer it had been without hearing her voice, the worse the withdrawal got.
He tried burying his mind, soul, and body into work. He had overexerted himself, his body close to shutting down. But it hadn’t been working.
His finger kept twitching with the ghost of her touch. His lungs were too tight, throat too dry.
Every thought kept looping back to her. Every breath was thick with the need to see her, to watch the way her lips parted before she said anything.
A madman he had become for Beth Fraser.
The thin thread of restraint he had been gripping onto with desperation was about to snap. All he needed was someone to even mention her name. All he needed was a fleeting moment and he would break.
Giving Zaghan control would never be a good idea. He was already far too fascinated with the idea of breaking her. The moment he took over control, he would go hunting for her. Callan knew his brother this much. Nearly all the things that came out of his mouth were always lies.
“No,” Callan said, his tone firm, leaving no room for bargain. “I can’t give you control. Not now. Not in a very long time.”
The corner of Zaghan’s mouth lifted, his grin a jagged thing, sharp enough to slice through bones.
“Oh, brother.” Zaghan drew out, his voice low and measured. But there was also something unhinged lurking beneath it, something coiled and waiting.
“Only if you’d realise already, that the longer you’ve kept me locked away in the darkness like this, the more patient I’ve become.” He tapped his finger against his knee, a slow, deliberate action, then lifted his gaze which was dark and bottomless. “The more powerful I’ll become.”
He leaned back into the leather chair, his lighter slowly being twirled around his fingers.
“Enjoy the control while it lasts. Because soon, I’ll snatch it from you.
You will fall asleep and I will slip out.
And when I do.” He paused, a vile, twisted chuckle ringing in the dark room.
“When I fucking take control, Callan, I will make you beg on your knees. I will make you fight against these same chains you have wrapped around me. I will make you cry like a desperate man. And guess what, control will be far from you. You will sit in the shadow and watch me walk around in your body, doing whatever I fucking want with it.” His words slithered into the dimly lit room, curling into the air like cigarette smoke; a poisonous, inescapable thing.
Callan felt it; a crawling, suffocating presence seeping into the cracks of his mind, pressing against the wall of his sanity.
Zaghan wasn’t just laying out empty threats like when they were younger. No. Right now, he had made a promise. And Zaghan always kept a promise.