Advisory Warning: Be aware that the latter portion of this chapter contains disturbing and potentially triggering content, including Violence, Hints at sexual violence, Mental health related issues, abuse and hints of a psychological break. Reader discretion is strongly advised. Please take care of your mental and emotional well-being. If this material may be harmful for you, you are encouraged to skip this section or proceed with caution.
#ALEX Pov#
#Time Skip: 1 Month and 2 Weeks#
I woke alone in my room, my cheeks tacky with dried tears. The dark pressed against the blinds."Justin." The name snagged in my throat; the tears rose again.
Two weeks earlier—my birthday—I'd asked him to be my boyfriend. I'd floated; he had, too. Then it soured. He went rigid and far away, always busy, always somewhere else. Excuses stacked into walls. And then, quietly, he ended us.
I knew the stress had him by the throat. Nights chewed him up; he'd never say it plain, but the nightmares left him raw—afraid, quick to anger, eyes lit with things he couldn't unsee. He worked himself thin: classes by day, the occult project after. I knew all of that. And still, it wasn't the reason. It wasn't a lack of love. It was simpler than that—and somehow harder.
We were siblings—brother and sister. He said it wasn't right. That it couldn't be okay. That it wouldn't work.
I argued that Uncle Kelbo didn't seem to judge—that he'd seen us and said nothing. He argued back that Uncle Kelbo probably didn't know it was more than familial affection. That it was wrong. Inappropriate. Incestuous—I think that was the word he used.
He said we'd be hiding from our family and from everyone else for the rest of our lives, and he didn't want that for me. He didn't want it for himself, either.
The thought of it made me sob harder. I burrowed deeper, nose in his jacket—his smell caught in the lining—his shorts on my hips, his underwear against my skin: a small shrine of him. I love him. I adore him. I am obsessed. I want. I need. He is mine. And still, after I laid it bare—after I let him see how unpretty my wanting is—he left. Not angry. Final. Because we're brother and sister. Who cares? I wanted to scream. The world, he said.
To hell with the world. I want him; I need him; he'll be mine, I swore to myself. Then silence—days, maybe weeks—time lost its edges. The day he ended us was the night I stopped ghosting into his room. Let him taste the night the way I do, I thought. Let him learn how heavy the dark is when no one comes.
I twist under the covers; tears leak, breaths snag—quiet and ugly. Our kiss flickers back. The star pendant taps my collarbone. His smile. His laugh. His everything. He is my everything. Maybe that's why it hurts like this.
Worse is knowing he might be hurting more. I've watched it: the confused shuffle through rooms, the bone-deep tired, the way he buries himself in study. He vanishes with Dad to do God knows what, then returns to repeat the day like penance. The scratches on his arms keep multiplying, deeper, darker. His eyes are empty, as if the nightmares are hollowing him out from the inside. Once, I heard it: a strangled scream, then silence, as if the room swallowed the sound. Another night, a whiff of singe in the hallway, and the bathroom gauze gone. I could only guess how bad it was. He kept smiling anyway. I did too. And none of it was true.
I missed him, I thought, as I sat up at last and pulled the covers off me.
The room gathered itself around me in dark pieces: the iron bed's blackened finials cold against my calves; wallpaper the color of old teeth, its faded roses climbing in a pattern that never quite repeated. A hairline crack ran from the ceiling like a vein to the window, where moonlight pooled on the sill in a thin pewter square. The lace curtains had yellowed with the house and breathed in the draft like a sleeping thing. On the dresser, a cracked mirror doubled me into strangers; the stump of a candle slumped in its tin saucer, a lip of wax like frost. Books leaned into one another beside a chipped music box; a loop of dried lavender hung from a nail, brittle as bone. The floorboards murmured under no weight but mine, and still I listened. In the chair, my coat kept vigil like a shadow in borrowed shape. Dust, old perfume, and the faintest singe threaded the air. My star pendant tapped my collarbone; his jacket still held his scent, and the room, for all its hush, felt crowded with the parts of him I couldn't put down.
Obsession swelled until it felt like a slow explosion under my ribs. I woke to the fallout: the room skewed, as if hands I didn't remember had moved things in the dark. No word for it—only the pull. Make sure he's safe. Make sure he's mine. All. Mine.
Only later would I realize my eyes had gone pearly at the edges, that the cracked mirror grew a new starburst when I rose. That I was a witch. I pulled on his jacket, the air faint with singe, and braced for a bitter Halloween.
...
Steam still clung to my skin as I peeled off his clothes and forced on my own. I went downstairs. Justin and Maxine were shoulder to shoulder on the couch, notebooks fanned like shields. He looked wrong—sallow, filmed over—moving as if a thin thread held him up. Long sleeves again, even now. The thought I'd been dodging tightened: he's hiding damage. Seeing him like that tipped the room, and the night he ended us rushed back...
...
The night he ended it, the house was asleep but his room wasn't.
A desk lamp lit a hard circle on the floor, all the rest of the corners soaked in shadow. Open books lay like wings—diagrams threaded with notes—something chalked faintly on the boards near the bed. The air smelled of antiseptic and the ghost of smoke, as if a match had been blown out just a second too late.
"Justin," I said, softly, the way I said it when I slipped in after midnight and he pretended not to notice.
He didn't turn. "You can't keep coming in here."
"Say you don't want me and I'll stop."
He flinched—barely. Long sleeves, in summer. A flash of gauze at his wrist when he shifted the book. "Don't make me lie."
I stepped closer. The star pendant tapped my collarbone like a metronome. "Uncle Kelbo saw us and didn't say anything. He doesn't care. Maybe nobody—"
"Maybe he didn't know what he was seeing." He finally faced me. His eyes were the tired gray you get before rain. "It isn't right," he said, each word careful, as if the room would punish him for them. "It can't be okay. It won't work."
"It already worked," I said. "It works every night I breathe and it's you I'm breathing for."
He closed his eyes, breathed once, twice. "We'd be hiding the rest of our lives. From Dad. From Maxine. From everyone. I don't want that for you."
"What if I want it?" My voice cracked. "What if I want you?"
A muscle jumped in his jaw. He looked at the chalk on the floor, at the notes that weren't just chemistry or Latin, at the corner where the shadows felt heavier. "You deserve daylight," he said. "You deserve…not this." His hand hovered, then fell. "It's wrong. Inappropriate. Incestuous."
The word lay between us like a shard.
"So what?" I tried to laugh and it came out broken. "Who cares?"
"The world does." His mouth curved in that polite nothing-smile he gave teachers. It made me hate it. "And if the world didn't, I still would. I can't do this to you."
"To me?" I took another step. The lamp hummed. The mirror on his closet door showed us at a slant; the hairline crack in the corner crept the smallest fraction wider, almost a sound. "You're the one with the scratches. You're the one who screams when you think no one hears. You're the one disappearing with Dad to do God knows what. Let me help. Let me have you."
He pulled the sleeve lower on instinct. "This isn't about help."
"Liar." The word left me before I could soften it. "You love me."
He didn't deny it. That hurt more than if he had. He stepped back until the bed touched his calves, like the room itself was pushing him away from me. "Loving you is exactly why I have to stop."
Something in me went bright and cold at once, like metal taken from a fire. For a heartbeat the edges of the lamp halo fuzzed; the mirror glinted—another spider thread of crack lacing out. He didn't seem to notice. He was too busy not touching me.
"I can be quiet," I said. "I can be careful. I can be anything you need."
"I need you to walk out the door." His voice gentled until it almost wasn't a voice at all. "I need you to have a life that isn't this room and my damage."
"Don't call it damage," I said, and only then felt the tears on my mouth. "Don't call me that."
"I didn't." He swallowed. "I'm the damage."
A silence opened. In it, somewhere deep in the house, the old clock coughed the quarter hour. A smell of singe uncurled and was gone.
"Tell me you don't love me," I said again, whispering now, as if the word could be tricked into changing shape.
He looked at me as if memorizing an answer key he would never get to use. "I love you," he said. "That's why I'm ending this."
It was the softest way to break a bone.
I reached for him anyway, because my body didn't know what my brain understood, and his hands hovered—almost holding, not holding. "Please," I said. I didn't know if I was begging him or the room or the part of me that had started to feel not entirely mine.
He shook his head. "Go," he said, and the word was a mercy trying very hard to be cruel.
I went because he asked. I went because if I didn't I'd never stop. At the door I looked back. He'd turned off the lamp and sat in the dark, the chalk circle ghosting faintly at his feet, his long sleeves like armor. The mirror caught us both one last time, and the crack in it looked like a line someone had tried to draw straight and couldn't.
In the hallway, the pendant tapped my throat again—counting, measuring—and the house drew a breath it hadn't earned. I promised myself I would be done. I promised myself a hundred other lies.
And then I stopped coming to his room at night.
...
I forced the memory back down; if I let it run, the tears would follow, and I didn't need that—nobody did.
"Hey, have y'all noticed glass breaking lately?" Mom called from the bottom of the stairs as she came up.
I went still. The hairline crack in the hall mirror flashed in my mind, the tiny sound it made when it crept.
"Why?" I asked, aiming for casual.
"In the sink—one of the juice glasses, spiderwebbed. And the bathroom mirror's got a new line." She glanced between us. "Y'all roughhousing?"
Maxine's head tipped no. Justin kept his eyes on the page.
I froze—thoughts bottlenecked. It's been happening more and more lately.
Maybe because he's not with you. Maybe because you're a freak. Maybe because he belongs to you, murmured the dark, feminine voice at the nape of my thoughts.
I shook my head, trying to drive it out.
It won't be that easy, she said, velvet over iron. Justin is your property. He is your lover, your boyfriend, your brother, your everything—the same way you are his everything: his slave, his sister, his lover, his wife, his toy. The words coiled tighter, each loop a band around my ribs. You breathe because he allows it. You wake because he is in the world. You are an instrument and he is the hand. Understand?
"I—no."
Yes. A click, like a fingernail against glass. He sets the terms. You enforce them. He owns you; you keep him. That is balance. That is order.
The mirror gave a hairline tick—another thread in the starburst.
Listen, she whispered, and the whisper was a map. He wakes at 4:11. He checks his phone twice, then stares at the wall. He eats only when Maxine reminds him. He studies until the page blurs and calls it discipline. He hides his arms. He lies to Dad. He thinks suffering is a plan. He thinks walking away from you is a cure. The voice warmed. You know his steps. You know the creak that means he's at the landing and the pause that means he's bracing for the night. You know the shape of his shadow under the door and the rhythm of his breath when the nightmare has him. You know because you have been good. Because you have watched.
My pendant tapped my collarbone—one, two, three—like a patient knock.
He walked away because he is trying to protect you, she continued. He is not cruel; he is mistaken. He belongs inside the circle you draw. He belongs where your hands put him.
"He said it was wrong."
He said a word the world taught him. I could hear her smile. The world is loud; you will be louder. It says no; you will say yes until yes is the weather he lives in.
"Suppose he refuses."
He won't. But if his mouth says no, hear his bones. A low, pleased hum. You will be obedience in the shape he wants. You will kneel if he needs stillness, stand if he needs a wall, speak if he needs a voice to drown the night. You are his pretty little doll—kept where he sets you, waiting where he leaves you, smiling when he glances—and you will be the hands that wind the clock of his life. He will use you the way a drowning man uses the shore: not with kindness, with need. That is not cruelty. That is survival. And you will see to it.
The room smelled faintly of blown matches.
Say it. The command folded over me like a blanket. He owns you.
"He owns me."
Again.
"Justin owns me."
And you?
"I keep him," I said, and the mirror sighed, a new crack budding from the old.
Good. The word stroked the inside of my skull. Now, plans. Copy his key. (You already know where he hides it.) Oil the hinges. Replace the window latch with one that locks from the inside. Move a chair under the knob when he sleeps. Not a prison—a sanctuary with only one door. Yours. A beat; I could almost see her tilt her head. Inventory the gauze. Count what disappears. Swap his shirts for long sleeves he cannot refuse. Steal his lighter. Empty the trash before Dad sees the singed cotton. Make the house small enough that he cannot get lost in it. Mark the floor where his feet rest when he studies; stand there until he learns you are the answer to every pause.
"I could sit by his bed," I whispered. "Track his breathing. Count the swallows when he drinks. Hold his wrists when they shake."
You will. Approval rang like a bell. You will feed him on the hour. Water. Salt. Broth. You will take his phone if the light keeps him awake. You will be the dark that doesn't hurt. You will put your body between him and whatever drags its nails along his window at three in the morning. If he runs, you wait at the only exit. If he hides, you sit outside the door until he opens it because you do not leave. You do not leave.
"And then you'll be quiet?" My voice was a thread.
When he is where he belongs, she said, I will rest. Until then, I will remind you. Put on your jacket. Wipe your face. Go downstairs. Touch his wrist—feel the tremor. Say his name and watch him look up. Claim him without raising your voice. Not a plea. A schedule. You will tell him: you are coming with me. You are eating. You are sleeping. You are safe. You are home. And if the night argues, you will argue louder.
My feet were already moving. The mirror's fracture mapped a delicate constellation over my shoulder. Somewhere below, a page turned and a pencil tapped twice—his tell when he couldn't focus.
Go, she purred, deeply satisfied. Remember: he owns you, and you keep him. You will lock the door, close the curtains, turn out the world, and give him one choice only—the choice of you. You will be the rule, the room, the ritual. He will use you to live. That is what you are for.
"ALEX!" Mom's voice snapped from the front door.
I blinked and found myself still in the kitchen, fingers sunk in the dish towel, the faucet running. Maxine watched me, worried. Justin kept his face to his papers, but his eyes slid to me for a heartbeat, then away.
"Honey, are you okay?" Mom asked, stepping into the doorway.
"Yeah," I said, too quickly. I shut off the water. "Zoned out. Headache."
Smile, the voice purred. Pretty little doll. Say what keeps them calm.
I smiled. "I'll grab some juice."
I reached for a glass. A hairline tick whispered through it as I set it down—spiderwebbing just a fraction. I covered the rim with my hand like I'd meant to. "Oops."
Mom's gaze flicked to the sink, then back to me. "You scared me. We're leaving porch lights off tonight, but if you kids go out, be back soon after dark."
"We will," Maxine said.
Justin shifted. The cuff of his sleeve hitched; a ghost-bite of gauze flashed, then hid again. My chest went tight.
There he is. Threadbare. Yours to keep.
"I'm fine," I told Mom, softer now. "Promise."
"Okay." She kissed my temple on her way past. "Five o'clock, dinner."
When she was gone, the room thinned. Paper rustled. Pencil against margin. Justin's tell when the words wouldn't come.
"Six," I said, setting the cracked glass aside and taking another. My voice was even. "We're heading out at seven. We'll stick to the lit blocks."
Maxine nodded. "Cool."
Justin looked up—only a second, but enough. "Sure."
Good, the voice breathed. You don't plead. You schedule. You close the exits and call it care.
I drank the juice. The star at my throat tapped my collarbone—one, two, three. I could be good. I could be anything, as long as he walked beside me under ordinary porch lights and called it normal.
As long as he loved me back with the same exquisite madness.
The same intense insanity only I, his pretty little doll could have.
...
By evening we were a small parade—Justin, Maxine, Harper, Zeke, and me—slipping through our corner of the city. Jack-o'-lanterns smoldered on stoops; plastic bones clicked in the wind like teeth. We'd sworn to Dad we'd be good and home early, so we walked under porch light halos and didn't stray
The streets glowed with paper lanterns and cheap LED cobwebs. Kids in capes and masks darted between doorsteps, their candy bags swelling like captured ghosts. Maxine led the way, Harper at her side, laughing too loud for how narrow the sidewalks were. Zeke trailed behind, hood up, the skeleton bones on his sweatshirt glowing faint green.
And then there was Justin, walking just ahead of me. Always just ahead. His sleeve brushed once against mine and it was enough to make my pulse skip. He looked fine—too fine. That smile again, the one he wore for teachers, for neighbors, for Mom and Dad. But I saw the way his shoulders hunched against nothing, the way he tugged his sleeves down too often, the way his eyes darted toward shadows as if they whispered his name.
Pretty little doll, the voice murmured. Stay close. Watch him. If he slips into the dark, you follow. You do not leave.
I clutched my candy bag tighter. From a porch ahead, a mechanical witch cackled on repeat, her jaw clacking like breaking glass.
Justin looked up at me just once, just long enough for the air to thicken, for my chest to ache with the exquisite madness I'd promised myself.
I smiled back.
And kept walking under the porch light halos.
We made a circuit of the block, then another—safe streets stamped with pumpkins and doormats that said Boo, Y'all. People we knew waved. Someone's dad in a cowboy hat handed out cider, steam rising in ghost-puffs. Maxine collected full-size bars like tributes; Harper traded her a peanut butter cup for a gummy eyeball and then regretted it immediately, face folding.
Zeke tried to look bored, failed, and finally said, "Okay but, like, the gummy eyeball has a filling," and Harper choked laughing and pretended to gag into a shrub. They bumped shoulders and forgot to stop bumping. Their hands found each other in the way hands do when no one wants to announce anything yet. It looked like an accident three times in a row.
"Lit block," Justin said, pointing, and Maxine veered that way. If he needed to tell me anything, he stepped sideways to tell Maxine instead, and I answered Maxine, and that was the choreography we agreed not to agree on.
"Curb," I said when she wasn't looking. He echoed, "Curb," to Maxine like we weren't speaking to each other at all.
It should have been unbearable. It wasn't. Not exactly. It was a kind of pain I knew where to put—right under the star at my throat, where counting lived.
A little boy in a dinosaur onesie tripped and Justin beat everyone there, scooping him up, handing him back to a grateful mom with that nothing-smile. His sleeve rode up. Gauze flashed like a secret trying to breathe.
A faint singe threaded the air, then thinned to leaf smoke.
He is fraying, the voice said, pleased and pitiless. Thread him to you.
"Hey," Harper said, still breathless from the gummy-eyeball fiasco, "Zeke says Mr. Wilson's house is doing real caramel apples. Actual apples, not the dentist trap at the PTA fair."
"Real caramel is a myth," Maxine declared. "But we will test."
We turned off the busy run of porches onto Wilson's street—quieter, the kind of block where the decorations were thrifted and the pumpkins wore scars that weren't spooky on purpose. Trees made a dark lid over us. Somewhere, wind chimes twitched.
That's where we saw them: three older boys in cheap skull masks and hoodies, swagger born of owning nothing but a corner. Not the same masks as before, but the same posture; I knew their walk the way a bruise knows a doorframe. They lounged against Mr. Wilson's rusted fence, plastic swords dangling like afterthoughts.
There, the voice purred, velvet over iron. A threshold. Make it a door that opens only your way.
I've got it, I thought back.
No you don't, she said, amused. But I do.
Heat slid behind my eyes. The mirror inside me fogged, then cleared. I didn't speak, but the night spoke through me anyway—an idea sweet as caramel and mean as a hook:
Over here.
Harper's laugh died in her mouth. Zeke's grip on her hand tightened; he tried to make it a joke and couldn't quite. Maxine hadn't looked up yet; she was reading the hand-lettered sign—CARAMEL APPLES $1 — HONOR JAR—like a menu in a foreign language.
Mr. Wilson's porch light made a warm circle. Beyond it, the hedge stitched a seam of dark. The three lifted their heads as if I'd called their names.
Ponytail—grease-slick, voice like sand—peeled off the hedge first, easy as a bad habit. The other two flanked without thinking, practiced geometry. They didn't just look like punks. They looked like men who'd done this before.
"Happy Halloween," Ponytail said, too friendly, stepping a half-pace into Harper's path. He didn't look at her face. "No need to be shy. We're just trying to talk."
"We already told you we weren't interested," I heard myself say. It sounded like me, tuned one degree sharper. The we landed like a dare, not a door.
The second one smiled with his teeth, hands too close to his belt. "Plenty to talk about. Plenty we could teach."
The alley yawned between Mr. Wilson's house and the next—brick, damp leaves, a choke point. Their bodies mapped us toward it in a lazy arc. My feet itched like I'd been handed stage directions.
Good, the voice murmured, velvet over iron. A threshold. Make it yours.
Justin moved without touching anyone. Shoulders tightened, then widened—wall mode. He slid one step so Maxine fell behind his line of sight. When he spoke, it was to her. "Keep to the light."
Maxine looked up, saw them, went blade-still, then shifted just enough to block the street's view of the knife I hadn't seen yet.
"Hey," Ponytail said, glancing past me to Justin. "You got a problem, kid?"
Justin stopped ten feet out. His face changed—cold, contained, a look I'd never seen on him and somehow recognized anyway. Right side back, left forward. Hands loose, ready. Eyes narrow, unblinking—the calm you get right before a snake strikes.
"You're in our way," he said, voice flat enough to steady a glass.
They laughed like a reflex. It came out thinner the second time.
"This block's about to clear," Justin added, not louder, not softer. "You really want to be standing here when it does?"
Behind them, a neighbor's blinds stirred. Mr. Wilson coughed, loud on purpose, rearranging paper plates he didn't need to rearrange.
The third boy's hand twitched. Metal winked—small switchblade, quick as a thought.
Zeke tensed. Harper's jaw set. She spoke loud enough for the porch to hear. "We said no. Do you not speak English, or are you just that dumb?"
Not peaceful. Effective. Ponytail's grin cracked. His gaze ticked to the corner, to the lights, to the cardigan witness.
Two more steps, the voice breathed through me, coaxing thread. Herd her. Herd you. Let him follow.
I didn't tell my feet to move. They did anyway—one step backward into the alley's mouth. Harper came with me, stubborn as gravity. The air went cooler. The porch light sheared off at our shoulders.
Justin saw the angle and took it first. He slid into the tight space, body becoming the bottleneck, eyes never leaving Ponytail's. He didn't posture. He didn't beg. He existed like a problem someone else would regret choosing.
Justin cut a glance to Zeke. "Keep Maxine with you. Take her down the street."Then to me and Harper, his voice flat: "When I say the word, you run. Catch up to them. Don't look back."
They kept coming, pressure without touch, easing Harper and me deeper into the alley—past the porch light's reach, past the windows that might have helped.
When the choke point pinched, Justin's voice cracked the dark. "Now!"
Harper bolted—sneakers slapping wet brick—already a streak of motion toward Zeke and Maxine.
I didn't run.
Half pilot, half passenger, I let my toe catch a raised brick. Candy scattered like coins. I went to my knees on purpose.
They smelled the stumble as invitation.
Ponytail's grin spread. He wet his lips, lazy as a bad habit, and with no hurry at all pulled a switchblade from his pocket. The click was small and surgical.
Get up, the sane part of me begged.
Stay, the voice purred, velvet over iron. Make him come deeper.
Justin was already moving.
His eyes went feral—rage burning under a deeper, older bruise. For a heartbeat he didn't look angry so much as hurt, like he was watching a loop he'd already survived a thousand times and couldn't stop. Fear for me sharpened everything.
Yes, the voice breathed.
Then he moved.
One blur of muscle and asphalt—Justin cut behind Ponytail and left the ground, a clean, vicious jump-kick. His heel slammed into the guy's shoulder-blade; the knife hand jolted wide. Steel flashed, then clattered, skipping across brick into the dark.
Ponytail staggered, swore, tried to turn. The alley swallowed the sound.
Ponytail's friends were on Justin instantly—swinging wild, trying to pin him to brick. Justin dropped to a knee and drove an uppercut into the nearest groin. The kid folded with a strangled yelp, clutching himself, eyes gone mean with the stunned, bully-hunger of being hurt—then he lunged anyway, tackling Justin into the wall. The third peeled off, pivoting toward the knife that had skittered into shadow.
He let out a clipped gasp—quiet enough I almost missed it—then turned into someone I didn't know. He drove a knee up into the guy's gut; the breath whooshed out of him. Justin wrenched both of the kid's hands wide, just enough to break the grip, sprang to his feet, and used the wall for leverage—one step, a surge—and smashed another knee into the kid's face. He hissed, pain flashing through him, but he didn't stop. He planted, pushed off the brick a second time, and launched forward, fist cocked. The leap carried him through—tackle and punch in the same brutal motion—driving the guy to the ground with a leaping, almost superman hit that made the alley ring.
The kid he'd flattened heaved him off just as the third one's fingers finally closed on the knife. The blade-boy looked at me—something in his eyes cooling to glass—and started a casual jog in my direction.
Justin, running on anger and adrenaline, saw it. His gaze went flat and predatory—like someone who'd already crossed lines and was ready to cross them again. For a heartbeat, the cold in his eyes scared me as much as the knife did.
He was up and in front of me before I could breathe. Steel flashed; the point kissed the air by my shoulder. Justin spun—a whip-quick roundhouse—boot snapping the boy back a step. The kid stumbled, caught himself, choked up on the handle, and came in low, slashing for Justin's throat.
Justin caught the slash mid-arc—left hand clamping the attacker's wrist, steel freezing inches from his throat. Tendons stood out in his forearm; the blade quivered between them.
He crashed in, erasing the space. A rising palm snapped under the guy's chin; an elbow ripped across his brow. Their arms knotted. Justin wrenched and drove, dragging the knife hand inward, trying to turn the point back into its owner—hard, final, meant to end it.
Justin snapped a straight right. The guy fumbled, hot-potatoed the knife to his off hand, and clung to it. They collided again—wrists knotting, shoulders grinding. Justin reset—his breath ghosting inches from my face—then surged back in.
The knife-hand dipped, angling for a low stab to his stomach.
Justin dropped under the line, kicked himself a few inches of space, twisted like a clean game input, and whipped a low kick into the guy's knee. The kid yelped and, on reflex, snapped a boot into Justin's shin as Justin tried to angle out.
Justin's head snapped back and cracked the concrete inches from my shoes. Hard. He blinked up at me through a rage-dazed blur.
Tears spilled before I could stop them. "Please… don't let them touch me."The plea left my mouth—but it wasn't entirely mine.
Justin's eyes flared, then narrowed to blade-thin slits. He planted his palms, kicked through, and sprang upright in a single vicious kip-up.
He rushed the knife-man. They collided and unwound—feints, low kicks, parries. Steel flashed. Shoulders slammed brick. Justin jammed the wrist; the guy rolled and carved for Justin's stomach. Justin shaved the edge off with his forearm, drove a knee, got shoved, regained ground. They caromed shoulder to shoulder, each fighting to steal the inch that turns into a grave.
I caught myself wondering why no one had come.
That would be me, dear, she purred. Be a good pretty doll and watch. It will be over soon.
The second friend finally shook off the pain and dove back in, turning it two-on-one. I pushed up to my knees, the alley swallowing sound, and watched.
Justin split his focus like a blade—jabbing, elbowing, and low-kicking the newcomer while parrying the knife with jolting economy, trying to bait a slip. Steel scraped brick. Feet slid on damp leaves.
Then he made his move.
He feinted left, sprang right, and back-stepped to jam the knife-man's lead foot. His inside forearm slid across the guy's throat—not a choke, a lever. In the same breath he rotated behind, shoulder to spine, and went back-to-back midair, dragging the man over the fulcrum of his hip. Momentum did the rest.
The world flipped.
The knife-man sailed, hit hard, and skidded, the blade cartwheeling out of his grip into the dark.
Justin sprinted to the dazed newcomer and drove a boot into his face. The kid's head snapped against concrete—once, twice—until a smear of red bloomed.
Justin stopped. He limped back toward me, chest sawing, sweat bright on his brow. He looked like he might fold if not for the adrenaline propping him up.
We both thought it was over.
It wasn't.
The knife-man—now empty-handed—came barreling back, and behind him Ponytail, both of them lifting guns like bad decisions they'd practiced.
The alley shrank. Two dark mouths stared us down.
See? the voice crooned, velvet over iron. When you refuse to finish, they change the weather for you.
Justin's stance tightened, putting himself between me and the barrels. His breath was ragged; his eyes were ice.
Somewhere beyond the hedge, Mr. Wilson's porch light hummed. The star at my throat went cold. A hairline tick whispered through the night, like glass deciding where to crack next.
I glanced over—the one Justin had dropped was clawing himself upright, wobbling. Everything was going bad. I didn't want to die. I didn't want Justin to die. For once, the voice and I were in sync: He won't, we said together.
A cold, glass-breaking shiver washed through me. My vision glazed white. Something invisible seized him from behind; his head jerked and snapped.
I blinked back into myself.
Gunshots cracked. Time thinned to syrup. Two bullets drifted toward us, bright and slow, and the star at my throat went ice-cold.
I looked at Justin. He was torn—angry, spent—and for the first time he seemed not to know how to stop it. For a heartbeat he went slack, almost resigned. Then he found my eyes. Love—bright, terrified—struck like a flare. A flicker of crimson lit his gaze as he seized my shoulder, tugged me close, and whispered, "Go through. Mow through."
The bullets hit—and ghosted through us—slapping into brick behind. I stared up at him, stunned. So did the shooters, mouths open.
"Go through. Mow through," Justin repeated, and ran.
They snapped out of it and fired again—again—and every shot went wide or passed cleanly through as if he were smoke. He closed the gap on the first one. Muscle remembered a punch; his hand drove forward—
—and slid into the man's chest like the air had become water.
For an instant the world held its breath. Then the trick broke. Justin's hand was there again, yanked back by gravity and rules. The man staggered, eyes huge, clutching at an absence where his sternum should have been—the front of his chest seemed to fold and vanish at once, leaving a small, impossible hole over his heart. He coughed red, knees buckled, and he went down.
Justin stared—shocked, and colder for it—then lifted his gaze to the second gun and spoke again, almost gently:
"Go through. Mow through."
Ponytail panicked and dumped the magazine—bullets spilling like Halloween candy—until the slide locked on a dry click. Justin was already there. Rounds kept whispering through me as if I were fog.
He appeared in front of Ponytail, close enough to count lashes. "Go through," he breathed, and drove both hands into the guy's chest to the wrists.
For a heartbeat the world held still.
Then the trick let go.
Reality snapped back; Justin's arms jolted free. Ponytail's breath hitched, eyes going wide and faraway at once, and he folded as if a string had been cut.
Dark spread under Ponytail's shirt as he crumpled. Justin wasn't done.
He dropped to a knee beside him and drove his fists down—once, twice, again—each impact a dull, awful thud that made the brick hum. Blood spurted out like a popped water balloon.
"You think you can touch her—or Harper—huh?" His voice tore, breath ragged. Another strike. "You have any idea how many nightmares you've given me?" He hit him again, then hovered, shaking, knuckles slick, eyes wild and bright. "It doesn't matter now, does it? You're done. You will never touch my sister—or anyone—ever again." He finished as he began to push his thumbs into his eye sockets. making them sink into his skull.
The alley swallowed the echo. Somewhere beyond the hedge, Mr. Wilson's porch light buzzed on like nothing had happened. The star at my throat went cold.
Enough, the voice whispered, velvet over iron. Pull him back. Or push him further. Choose the weather.
I pushed to my feet and felt the trick—that impossible thinness between things—snap as I rose. I crossed to Justin, caught his shoulder, dropped to a knee, and turned his face toward mine. I kissed him—brief, steady, an anchor.
"Hey," I said against his breath. "It's done. That's enough."
His fists loosened. The wildness in his eyes guttered, then steadied. My star tapped my collarbone—one, two, three—cool again. Somewhere beyond the hedge, Mr. Wilson's porch light hummed like the world insisting on ordinary.
"It's over," I said, still shaking. "I don't know how or what that was—but you saved me."
I said pulling him deeper into me for another kiss, this time one he returned, passionate. We pulled back. He wavered, chest heaving, then hauled me back and kissed me again—hard this time, desperate, all the things we couldn't say. When we finally pulled apart, a thin strand of spit stretched between us and snapped. We stared, wrecked and certain.
"We need to hide them," I said, voice scraped flat.
He nodded once, thinking, then set his palm to his chest. "Go through. Mow through."
Justin moved like an undertaker and a magician—calm, methodical. He pressed his palm to the ground and breathed, "Go through. Mow through." The alley obeyed. Gravel shifted; concrete seemed to sigh. Bodies, footprints, the glinting brass—everything slid down and vanished as if the earth had swallowed a secret. He touched the knife and the emptied guns; they winked out the same way, leaving only dust and ordinary air.
We cleaned ourselves up as best we could—sleeves to skin, rainwater from a sagging gutter, deep breaths until our hands stopped shaking. When the alley looked blank and us like nobody's, we stepped back into the porch-light halos to find the others.
We stepped out of the alley and the city had already changed its mind about Halloween.
Blocks away, porch lights flickered off in a chain reaction. Parents materialized from doorways with flashlights and phones, calling names that traveled in frightened loops: "Eli!—Maya!—Back here, now!" Little vampires cried fat, mortifying tears; a princess clutched her crown like a life raft; a toddler in a fuzzy bee suit sat down in the middle of the sidewalk and wailed until someone scooped him. Candy bags dragged like anchors. Someone's dad swore it was firecrackers; someone's mom said, very quietly, "No," and started herding.
Sirens faint, then nearer. The air felt dented, like it remembered being loud.
Justin walked beside me, steady because he had to be. His breath still hitched every few steps; the gauze under his sleeve had bled through in a thumbprint crescent. The trick had gone out of the world; gravity sat on him again. My star tapped my collarbone—one, two, three—cool in a way that made me uneasy.
You kept him, the voice murmured, velvet over iron. Now keep them calm.
We cut left at the block with the "Boo, Y'all" mats and the inflatable ghost that had given up and folded in on itself. People craned as we passed—kids clocking our faces, parents counting us as if we were theirs to inventory. A woman shoved a thermos of cider into my hands without seeing me; I passed it to a pirate who looked like he'd forgotten how to swallow.
We found them at the far corner by the mailbox shaped like a fish—Harper on her toes, scanning; Zeke pacing a four-step square; Maxine in the middle like a fire hydrant everyone was tied to with invisible leashes. All three of them turned the second we appeared.
Harper hit me full force. "Where were you?" she demanded against my shoulder, voice breaking at the edges. She pulled back, hands on my cheeks, checking for blood like a medic. "I heard—there were pops—then you were just gone."
"I'm okay," I said, and the calm in my tone surprised us both. "I'm okay."
Zeke had Justin by the forearm, then the shoulders, then—awkward, sincere—just pulled him in. "Dude," he said into Justin's jacket. "Dude."
Maxine didn't move at first. She just looked—eyes sharp, counting how many pieces we were in. Then she stepped up and punched Justin in the arm hard enough to sting. "You scared me," she said, and then she hugged him so fiercely it made his ribs creak. "You absolute idiot. You scared me."
"I'm here," he told her, voice rough. "I'm here."
Around us, the block kept fraying. A man in pajama pants insisted on walking everyone to their cars. A cluster of moms formed a perimeter with tote bags and body language. Two teenagers argued about whether it had been on this street or the next; an older woman said, "Inside," to nobody in particular, to everyone, and pointed at her porch like it was a boat.
Mr. Wilson shuffled up, cardigan buttoned wrong again, eyes wide and watery. "Police are on their way," he said to our ankles. "You kids come sit on my steps till your folks get here." He looked at Justin like he wanted to add something and decided not to. His porch light hummed a little louder than the others.
Harper's hands were still shaking on mine. "I thought—" she started, then stopped. "I thought I'd lost you."
"You didn't," I said. The truth and the lie overlapped so perfectly it felt like glass.
Justin had gone quiet—the kind of quiet that isn't empty but full of noise. Up close, you could see the exhaustion wash through him in small waves, less a fade than a flicker. He rolled his sleeve down, too late to hide the crescent of red. Zeke clocked it, didn't comment, shifted to stand on that side like a windbreak.
"What happened?" Maxine asked, not looking at him so the question could land and not bruise. "Was it—firecrackers?"
"Probably," Justin said. It came out in the register he used for teachers and neighbors: polite, blank, almost cheerful. It made my teeth hurt. "Somewhere by the park."
"Felt closer," Zeke muttered.
"People panic," Justin said, as if reciting. "Sound bounces."
A police cruiser ghosted past at the end of the block; two officers moved like chess pieces, speaking into radios. The siren whooped once and died. Parents lowered their voices; kids got braver in pairs.
Harper squeezed my fingers and only then seemed to realize she was still holding them. She let go with an apologetic face; I shook my head: don't. Zeke draped an arm around her shoulders like it had always belonged there. She leaned in, surprised at herself, and stayed.
Maxine fussed with the sleeve Justin had already fixed. "You need a bandage."
"I'm fine."
"You're not."
He huffed a laugh that wasn't one. "Later."
He breaks himself to fit the hour, the voice said fondly, like a cat admiring a bird. Remind him he has a home other than pain.
I swallowed the answer that rose. The star tapped—one, two, three.
"Hey," I said instead, to the group, to the air. "We should get inside. Mom said porch lights off, home before dark." I glanced at the sky; it was already more bruise than blue.
Mr. Wilson nodded like I'd passed a test. "Inside, then," he said. "Landline works if anyone needs. Cider, too." His eyes snagged on Justin's, and for a second something like understanding moved there—old fear recognizing new—but he only patted the rail. "Steps are sturdy."
We climbed the short stairs. The wood creaked in a reassuring way. Harper sat, Zeke dropped beside her, knees touching by default. Maxine perched on the top step, running inventory out loud—"Phone, keys, candy, dignity"—until her voice steadied. Justin eased down next to me and exhaled as if he'd been holding his breath since August.
"They said it was on the next street," a dad reported as he passed, phone pressed to his ear. "No injuries. False alarm, maybe." He said it too brightly, like the world would hear and comply.
Harper leaned forward. "Next time," she said, not to anyone in particular, "we're staying in a pack."
"Next time we're watching movies," Maxine corrected. "I'm voting for something with cartoons and zero knives."
"Seconded," Zeke said.
"Thirded," Justin offered, and it sounded almost like him. He rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes and let his head tip against the post behind us for one long blink. When he opened them, whatever crimson had flickered there was gone. What was left was tired and human and breakable.
I didn't reach for him. I didn't have to. Our shoulders touched—accidentally-on-purpose—and stayed.
Across the street, a child howled at a parent over an unfair rationing of Kit Kats. A porch light buzzed and steadied. The sirens faded to the kind of distance that lets people pretend they were never close.
Good, the voice breathed, pleased. They live. You keep him. For now.
I let the sentence pass through me without catching. The night settled back into its costume. We sat on Mr. Wilson's steps like kids who'd only ever been kids, and when Mom's car finally turned the corner, I pretended the relief in my chest belonged to someone else.
...
We got home to a living room lit like an interrogation—lamps too bright, shoes still by the door where we'd kicked them this morning. Mom and Dad were already waiting, phones face-down, faces set. Maxine hovered between us, chin up like she'd decided to be the spokesperson if we fell apart.
"What happened?" Mom started, then corrected herself without breathing. "Where were you."
"By Mr. Wilson's," I said. "We stuck to the lit blocks like we promised."
"We heard pops," Dad said, voice too even. "Sirens."
"Firecrackers," Justin offered, the careful tone he saved for teachers and neighbors. "People panicked."
Mom's eyes swept all three of us, counting bruises that hadn't bloomed yet. "Did you see anyone? Anything?"
"A crowd," I said. "Then it thinned. We lost sight of Harper and Zeke for a second, then found them by the fish mailbox. That's it." The full, omitted picture fit neatly in my mouth.
Maxine nodded along, backing the story like a co-signer. "Mr. Wilson had cider," she added, as if that detail proved normalcy. "We sat on his steps like you always tell us to do—somewhere public."
Harper and Zeke texted that they were home. Maxine's phone chimed a heartbeat later; she flashed the screen—Harper again, u good? home home—and thumbed back safe. Dad called Harper's mom anyway. Mom called Mr. Wilson to say thank you for the porch steps and the cider. They thanked God in a handful of different sentences.
I looked at Justin. He looked back. We both thought it at the same time: No god was involved.
Good girl, the voice murmured, velvet over iron. You changed the weather.
"Shower," Mom said, switching to triage. "All three of you. Then food."
Steam fogged the hallway mirror. Under the water, the city smell loosened—smoke, sugar, something like metal I pretended was from old pennies. I watched the day sheet off me in pale streaks and told myself the shiver was only heat leaving. The star pendant clicked the tile; I slipped it back on before the glass cleared.
Down the hall, Justin showered fast. The gauze under his sleeve had bled through in a crescent; he changed it without commentary. Maxine emerged in flannel shorts and the pumpkin blanket around her shoulders like a cape. "You're leaking," she told Justin, zeroing in on the red crescent. She dug a fresh bandage from the hall kit and set it by his elbow without making a scene.
At the table, Mom pressed bowls of soup into our hands like charms. Dad tried for normal talk and landed on weather. Every few minutes one of them reached across to touch a wrist, a shoulder, to make sure we were still there. Maxine slurped loudly on purpose until Mom smiled by accident.
"Thank God you're okay," Mom said again, quieter now.
"Thank God," Dad echoed.
Maxine echoed them both, soft. I nodded because it helped them. Inside, the voice and I shared the same small smile.
We cleaned up, loaded the dishwasher, did all the ordinary steps that prove you're not broken. It was late by the time the house exhaled. Doors clicked. The clock coughed the hour. The porch light went dark.
Maxine yawned like a flare. "I'm crashing on the couch," she announced, already half under the pumpkin blanket. "Text me if either of you get up for water so I know you didn't die."
"In the kitchen," Dad called, "there's a pitcher."
"We know," Maxine said, and tucked herself in like a burrito with eyes.
In my room, the ceiling felt an inch too low. The bed felt like a lie I couldn't fall for. I lay in the dim for a while, jittering carefully so the sheets didn't hear me. Then I got up.
I hadn't gone to his room in weeks.
The hallway knew my steps anyway. At Justin's door I paused, palm on cool wood, listening. No sound but his breath on the other side, awake-breath, the kind that's trying not to be.
I eased the handle. The room was a gray print of itself—books in their stacks, the desk lamp off, the chalk circle a rumor on the floor. He lay on his back, eyes open to the ceiling like he was memorizing it. When I stepped in, he turned his head. He didn't ask. He lifted the covers.
I slid in beside him. The bed dipped and remembered us.
We didn't say anything at first. His shoulder was warm against mine; our breathing tried to find the same count and almost did. Up close I could see the tremor in his hand where it rested on the sheet; I set my palm over it and the tremor had somewhere to go.
He looked at my mouth. I looked at his.
I kissed him—steady, grounding, no theatrics. He answered with a low, unsteady sound like surrender. We broke for air and found nothing there, so we did it again—deeper, urgent, saying the things we hadn't had words for. When we finally pulled apart, a thin strand of spit stretched between us and snapped. We laughed once, a quiet, helpless noise, and then didn't.
We held each other like we were all we had. His heart slowed against my ribs. The star tapped my collarbone—one, two, three—cool as a kept promise.
From the couch downstairs, the TV murmured to no one; Maxine's phone buzzed and went quiet. The house settled around us like a hand.
Good job, pretty little doll, the voice said as my eyes slid closed. Good job.