6. Chapter 6- August
REMEMBER.
The word carved into Lenora’s palm is still bleeding when the lights go out.
For one second, neither of us moves.
Then she says my name.
Not loudly. Not panicked.
Just…
“August.”
And I’m no longer in my apartment.
I’m standing in the snow.
1897…
I know the year before I know where I am.
Cold slices through my coat as snow gathers on my shoulders. There’s blood on my hands.
Lenora stands ten feet away from me.
My Lenora. The first Lenora.
Dark hair hanging loose around her face. White nightdress stained red. Bare feet disappearing into the snow. She’s crying.
I am too.
“Come back inside.” I beg her.
“No.” she shakes her head.
“You’ll freeze.”
“Good.”
“Lenora.” I warn.
“Don’t.” She backs away.
Something is wrong with her face. Not wrong.
Changing.
Her cheekbones have sharpened. Her jaw looks more like mine. Her eyes are still hers.
God. Those eyes.
I take a step.
She raises a knife. “Stay away from me.”
I stop. “Give me the knife.”
“No.”
“Lenora.”
“You lied.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You said you could stop it.”
“I thought I could.”
Her hand trembles as the blade catches moonlight. “I woke up with your tooth in my mouth.”
I say nothing.
“And your scar on my hand.”
“I know.”
“You’re losing weight.”
“I know.”
“Your hair is falling out.”
“I know.”
“STOP SAYING THAT.” Her scream tears across the frozen field.
I flinch.
She presses the knife against her throat.
“No.” My voice breaks. “Lenora.”
“If I die, it stops.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
“Please.”
“Don’t come closer.”
I do anyway.
One step.
Her blade presses harder. A thin red line appears.
Every part of me goes cold. “I’ll stop loving you.”
She laughs. It’s the ugliest sound I’ve ever heard. “You can’t.”
“I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I swear.”
“You told me last night you’d love me until there was nothing left of you.”
My chest caves. “I was wrong.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Yes.”
“Say you hate me.”
I stare at her.
“Say it.”
“I hate you.”
Her mouth trembles. “Again.”
“I hate you.”
“Mean it.”
“I hate you.”
She begins sobbing.
I cross the distance before she can stop me.
Her knife falls.
I grab her.
She hits me. Hard.
Again.
Fists against my chest. “You fucking liar!”
“I know.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I hate you!”
“I know.”
Then she kisses me.
Blood and tears.
Cold lips. Desperation.
We fall into the snow. And even inside the memory, I already know how this ends. I remember everything now.
Not all at once. In fractures. Pieces. Violent little flashes.
The first time Lenora tried to kill herself to save me. The first time I stopped her. The first time I learned that stopping her only made everything worse.
The memory changes.
1908 A hotel room in London.
Different Lenora. Different name.
Eleanor. Blonde. Blue eyes. Same laugh.
Same fucking soul.
She’s tied to a chair. I tied her there. Her wrists are raw from fighting the rope.
“You’re hurting me.”
“I know.”
“Untie me.”
“No.”
“August.”
“No.”
“You said you loved me.”
“I do.”
“Then untie me.”
“I can’t.”
Her face twists. “You’re afraid.”
“Yes.”
“Of me?”
I look away.
Her mouth opens. The hurt in her expression makes me want to tear my own heart out.
“Of what I become?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Of what I become around you.”
She stares at me.
I have been awake for five days. There’s bottles everywhere. Notes. Measurements. Pieces of my hair. Teeth in a glass. I’ve been documenting every loss. Trying to understand. Trying to control it. Trying to turn love into numbers because numbers cannot betray me.
“Let me go,” she whispers.
“No.”
“I won’t touch you.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“I won’t kiss you.”
“Not enough.”
“I’ll leave.”
“You always come back.”
“So do you.”
I look at her. And there it is. The truth neither of us wants.
I cross the room and kneel in front of her resting my forehead against her knees. “I don’t know how to save us.”
Her fingers twitch against the rope. “Then stop trying.”
“I can’t.”
“August.”
“I can’t watch you do this again.”
“You’re the one disappearing.”
“Yes.”
“Then let me choose.”
I look up.
She’s crying. “I would rather lose you because I loved you than spend another life wondering what it felt like.”
My throat closes.
I untie her.
That night, we stop fighting.
Three weeks later, she holds me while I die.
Except I don’t die. Not completely.
I wake six days later.
Alone. My body restored.
Eleanor gone.
On the pillow beside me is a note.
I remember everything now. I’m sorry.
I find her in the Thames. The memory fractures.
1921.
Music. Laughter. The parlor.
There she is. This is the memory I told Lenora about.
Furniture shoved against the walls. My voice ruining a song. Her bare feet on top of mine.
She’s laughing so hard she can barely stand. “You’re terrible.”
“I know.”
“Stop singing.”
“No.”
“August.”
“Dance.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re stepping on me.”
“You deserve it.”
She kisses me.
I kiss her back.
Sunrise spills through the curtains. For a moment, there’s no curse. No molt. No fear.
Just her.
Then another memory crashes into it.
Same room.
Two weeks later.
Broken furniture.
Blood–my blood.
Lenora screams at me. “Why did you lock me in here?”
“Because you were leaving.”
“You can’t keep me!”
“You always leave.”
“Because you always start treating me like a fucking prisoner!”
“Because every time you leave, you come back worse!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stay.”
“I’m killing you!”
“I DON’T CARE.”
She slaps me.
I grab her.
She bites my lip hard enough to bleed.
I shove her away.
She hits the table.
The look on her face…
God. I remember that look.
Not fear. Betrayal.
“You hurt me.”
I release her instantly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Lenora…”
“Don’t.” She walks toward the door.
I block it.
She looks at me. “Move.”
“No.”
“August.”
“No.”
“Move.”
“No.”
She picks up the fireplace poker.
I laugh. Not because it is funny. Because by then we’re both unraveling. “Do it.”
Her face crumples. “Move.”
“Make me.”
“August.”
“Maybe this is what we keep doing wrong.”
“What?”
“Maybe one of us has to fucking die.”
Her eyes widen as the poker trembles.
I step closer. “Do it.”
“Stop.”
“Kill me.”
“August.”
“Do it before I disappear anyway.”
She screams and swings.
The memory cuts before impact.
But I know. I remember waking again days later. My skull whole. The room empty with her wedding ring sitting beside my bed.
1944
War.
Blackout curtains. Sirens.
Lenora this time is called Anna.
She smokes even though I hate it. She wears my shirt, sleeps with a pistol beneath the pillow.
We have promised each other there will be no touching. No kissing. Nothing that could strengthen whatever exists between us.
We last eight days.
On the ninth, bombs fall.
The building shakes. Glass explodes. Anna screams.
I find her beneath the table. I drag her against me.
She wraps herself around my body. “If we’re going to die, I’m not dying without you.”
“We’re not dying.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“Liar.”
“Yes.”
She kisses me while London burns.
I remember thinking…If this is the end, let it be hers.
The memory changes.
Months later. Her body is almost finished. Half her hair has darkened to match mine. Her left eye is my color. Her fingers carry my scars. She sits beside me on a mattress.
I’m weak–so fucking weak.
She has a pistol in her lap. “Which one of us?”
I know what she means.
“We don’t know if it works.”
“One of us has to try.”
“I’ll do it.”
“No.”
“Anna.”
“No.”
“I come back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I did last time.”
“And if you don’t?”
I look at her. “Then you live.”
She cries. “You think that’s living?”
I take the pistol.
She grabs it too.
For several seconds, we fight over it.
Then…a gunshot.
Silence.
I don’t know who pulled the trigger. I never have. I only remember waking. Again. And finding her dead beside me. The bullet had gone through both of us. Her first. Mine second.
I came back. She didn’t.
Until 1967.
The memories stop long enough for me to breathe.
I’m back in my apartment.
Darkness.
Lenora is gripping my shirt. “August?”
My entire body is shaking. I can barely see her. “Turn on your phone.”
“What?”
“Flashlight.”
She does.
The small white beam illuminates her face. She looks terrified. Not of whatever is in the apartment.
Of me.
“What did you see?”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out.
“August.”
“I killed you.”
Her face goes still. “What?”
“I think...” My voice breaks. “I think I killed you.”
She releases my shirt. The distance between us is only inches but feels like miles. “When?”
“More than once.”
Her lips part.
I continue before I lose the ability. “And you killed me.”
She stares. “How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said there were eight cycles.”
“I know.”
“How many?”
I shake my head. “I don’t fucking know.”
She turns away.
“Lenora.”
“Don’t.”
There it is. The word from 1921. Same tone. Same hurt.
“Don’t touch me.”
I stop.
The flashlight trembles in her hand. “Tell me.”
“You don’t want to hear it.”
“Tell me.”
So I do.
The chair. The ropes. The fireplace poker. The gun. Her trying to cut her throat in the snow. Me locking doors. Her begging me to stop loving her. Me refusing. Every time one of us tried to control the cycle, we became crueler. More desperate. More afraid.
Love rotted into possession. Fear turned into violence.
By the time the molt reached its final days, neither of us knew whether we were trying to save each other or destroy each other first.
Lenora listens silently.
When I finish, she asks “Did you ever murder me?”
The question lands differently.
Murder. Not accident. Not mercy. Not some terrible choice made together.
I close my eyes. Another memory answers.
Fuck.
“No.” The lie comes automatically.
Lenora sees it. “August.”
“Don’t.”
“You did.”
“I don’t know.”
“You just remembered.”
“I said I don’t know.”
“Look at me.”
I can’t.
“August.”
She steps closer. “Look at me.”
I do.
Her eyes are wet. “So show me.”
“What?”
“The memory.”
“No.”
“You said touching can trigger them.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what it will do to you.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
I can’t.
So Lenora grabs my face and the memory takes us both.
1967.