#MC Pov#
#Time Skip: 1 Month#
The day after Halloween the house still smelled like sugar and smoke, as if the night had only loosened its mask and set it on the chair beside it. Alex sat on the edge of the bed with her hands pressed to her eyes. The pain had her weeping—quiet at first, then steady, a thin river she couldn't dam. I pulled her in. Even bent by it she tried to soothe me, tracing small circles between my shoulders like she might rub out whatever was written there.
My own hurt was a darker animal. Not needle-bright like hers, but heavy, patient—the drumbeat of what-ifs. What if someone found the bodies. What if anyone had seen what we did. The questions paced the hallway of my skull, leaving wet footprints, coming back, and coming back again and again.
Beneath the thinking, everything burned. My muscles felt chewed, my temples ticked like a bad clock, my legs held the ache of miles I hadn't earned. I could feel the soft places where fear had made a home. If there was going to be a later, I'd have to build it out of sinew and breath. I'd have to harden. I realized, with a bitterness that tasted like aspirin, that my body was a blunt instrument—and I would need to sharpen it.
That aside, we lay together and held on—an anchor sunk in each other's dark water. We hadn't spoken; not about what happened, not about what we were or weren't. We let the silence do the shaping. For now it named us nothing, and nothing felt safer than the truth.
I kept replaying the fight—the way I drove the spell like a stolen car, Go Through, Mow Through, past the rails it was built to ride. It should have thrown me. It didn't. Crumps never said a word about that edge, never warned me it existed. I'd ask him, if I got the chance.
The fight left fingerprints. In the old life I knew how to break a man quick, but he was cleaner, stronger in the meat. And the magic—God, the magic—showed me how small I was inside it: a corridor of locked doors, and I held only a shard of key.
So I made a quiet vow, sharp as a cut: fix it all. Body, craft, every soft place. Whatever it cost. Nothing like that would happen again. I didn't know then how right I was—and how wrong. But the lessons were already walking toward me.
And by then, it was far too late to call the hounds back.
"Justin," Alex said, jaw tight against the pain, "do something for me."A low sound slipped out of me. "What?"
"Your hand," she breathed. "On my throat. While we rest. It will quiet me." The need in her voice had teeth.
I hesitated—one beat, the length of a pulse. The request sat strange in me, but pain makes new shapes of people. I set my palm in the hollow of her throat, circled it with my fingers, and held—just enough to say mine, not enough to bruise.
"Mm. Thank you… thank you." The words sounded doubled, like two voices wearing the same mouth. I let it slide into the dark between us and drifted—caught between waking and the shallow water of sleep—while my thoughts ran the corridors, hunting.
...
We surfaced later the same day, light thin as old gauze. Better, maybe—but I was worse. Soreness lit up in ugly constellations: legs, feet, gut, back, arms, face, skull—everywhere, all the wrong stars.
As if to salt the wounds, the nightmares found the door again. One day of truce—that's all they gave me. My self-made cuts kept their mouths open, whispering, nowhere near closed.
Alex rolled toward me, pain bright as glass in her eyes. "You don't look okay. Let's clean those wounds."She shed the covers and crossed to the dresser like she'd rehearsed it in sleep, lifting the spare wrap and the scissors with a sure hand. On the way back, her gaze snagged on the wall—my taped saints and ghosts, the scientists and philosophers staring down like jury lamps—and then returned to me.
"Sit up, Master." The word cut clean. I blinked at her, throat tight. Before the question could form she peeled the blanket aside and beckoned. I sat.
She drew my sleeves to the elbow and set to work—the cold sting, the slow, practiced care. She looked at the damage, then at me; whatever moved through her eyes found the tender places and pressed. She didn't speak. She bound me back together, knot by small knot.
I pulled the sleeves down; she put the tools away. When I lifted my head she was already there, close enough to share breath. Her hands gathered me, and the kiss came fast—a strike of flint in the dim.
The kiss came hungry—needful, ragged, near-starved. I answered it anyway, too tired to wrestle the knots in my head. She lifted her face from mine and searched me.
"If you won't be my boyfriend," she whispered, "be my master. Please. I'll be good." Tears made her eyes bright as wet stone.
Doubt barely had time to breathe. I nodded and drew her back. I couldn't bear the animal shape sadness made of her. And this wasn't love we were naming—only a role, a word with teeth. Her tongue met mine and mapped it, slow and reverent, as if tasting a cure. For a heartbeat she seemed lit from within, floating—then she eased away, smiled, and touched her lips with the tip of her tongue.
"Delicious."
She folded herself down like a verdict and held my gaze. "We need to talk—about what happened, what you did, us. Everything."
So we emptied the night between us. The killing—mine, if we're counting—of Ponytail and his friends. We found the same cold center: no grief for the dead, no pity for how he died; only the sour taste that the blood came on our hands. Truth? Some small animal in me was satisfied he'd stopped breathing. I kept that one caged from her.
Then she asked about the trick—the way the world opened and I went through. I let the silence sit until it grew teeth. It wasn't mine to give. But she waited, patient as winter, and in the end I unlatched the gate and let the story out. All of it.
...
Down in the family lair, the air hummed with old dust. Professor Crump sketched spacetime like veins on a chalkboard, and I tried to follow the flow. Across from us, Alex sat with Dad, weathering another sermon on the sacred art of studying. Again.
A month had passed since then. Alex and I had never been closer—sometimes a bit too close. She rarely left my side when she had the choice, and she'd started sleeping in nothing but my old sweater and a pair of my boxers. I didn't mention it.
We'd talked about us, about how I felt. We decided to let it be what it would be. Nothing really changed from before I broke up with her; if anything, it grew. Alex did her best to make it seem like she belonged to me; we settled on master and slave—or her favorite, doll. I didn't have much say. Nor was I in the mood to think about it further. For now.
We agreed we'd go back one day and dispose of the bodies properly when we had the means. Until then we prayed no one found them. No one did. There was a report about the three missing, but it faded. No one seemed to care much. Thank god. It may seem cruel to think. But I thought it nevertheless.
I told Dad that Alex knew. He and Mom were furious, then confused when Professor Crump explained that Alex had begun to awaken as well. Reluctantly, they agreed to let her learn beside me. None of us knew exactly when it started, or why.
During this stretch I bulked up and trained—worked exercise into my routine and put in time on the mitts. It wasn't much, in retrospect, but it was a start.
Whatever happened with Ponytail cracked something open. Go Through, Mow Through ran hot in me now; I could ghost a wall, send a baseball through a door like paper. The truth spell grew faster still—rank and eager—save for a couple of… incidents I refuse to revisit. Ugh.
Memo to the future: never test it on Mom or Dad again.
But the short jump—the teleport—sat like a locked animal. Weeks with Crump and I was still circling the cage, no closer to the latch.
He told me it was beyond my grade for now; that it would take time; that when it finally clicked, the rest would shrink to child's play.
I believed him. Still, one question kept burning a hole in my mouth.
"Crump," I cut across his stumble through gravity's rules, "could intangibility be… weaponized?"
He tilted his head, the chalk hanging still in his fingers. "For most, no. The world won't let them take a bite while they're smoke. But my false domain bends that mercy. For me, yes."
My confusion only deepened. "What if you killed the flow mid-phase—cut the current while you, or something you're holding, is inside someone?"
Crump's brow folded. "No. The world won't take that bargain. Best case, you jam yourself—or the thing—into the body like a bad stitch. Worst case, it spits you back out hard. Painful either way."
He looked at me, puzzled. "Justin, what would prompt you to ask a question like that?"
I shook my head. "Nothing important—just curiosity. Still, only your false domain could make something like that happen, right?"
Crump's mouth went thin. "Yes. Only my false domain."
He set the chalk down, then picked it back up, restless. "Most workings have what I call compassionate constraints. The world keeps a few soft rules even for the cruel. Intangibility is one. While you're smoke, you can't bite."
I tried to look bored. Failed.
He watched me too long. "You're not asking about theory, Justin. You're testing a door."
"It's just… architecture," I said. "What holds. What doesn't."
"The door you're feeling for doesn't open." He drew two ovals on the board—one labeled YOU, one labeled THEM—then shaded the space between. "Go Through asks permission from both bodies. The permission is mutual or it fails. That is the courtesy of walls. My false domain counterfeits consent. I forge the signature. You cannot."
"So there's no edge case," I said. "No timing trick."
"If you manage a 'timing trick,' you'll tear yourself before you harm them." He tapped the shaded space. "Phase debt. The world will collect. From you."
I swallowed. "Even if I only—"
He cut me off with a raised hand. "You asked if harm was possible. I answered: not for you. And if you hunt for exceptions, the exceptions will hunt back."
Silence. Across the room, Alex murmured something to Dad, then went quiet again.
"Sorry for asking," I said, more fed up than I meant to sound.Then how had I done it? If it took a near god-level bond with the spell to make it hurt, how had I managed the same?
I didn't know, but one day I would find out.
…
Training ends early—it's Thanksgiving. Company incoming: Uncle Kelbo, Grandma, and a mystery plus-one. Maxine is vibrating at an excited frequency only dogs and siblings can hear.
We trek through the Waverly, up the winding stairs, and into home base. The kitchen is a warm ambush: Maxine and Mom, tag-teaming the stove. Turkey and collard greens for the civilians; ham for me (Team Ham forever). Man, do I love her.
Mom clocks us and flashes the evil-mom smile."Since you're here, you can set the table," she says in a tone OSHA would certify.
Dad leans in, stage whisper: "We should've stayed downstairs."Alex: "Yeah. Can we reverse and pretend we forgot something? Like… our lives?"
We pivot to retreat—and Mom is suddenly behind us, eyes closed, smile serene, like a kindly statue that definitely moves when you blink. We gulp in harmony.
"I've got the table!" I blurt."I'll take the living room!" Alex blurts faster and vanishes like a guilty draft.
Mom turns to Dad. "Jerry. A word?""No," he says."Too bad," she replies, already escorting him toward the pantry court.
I lay out plates with the precision of a bomb tech. Forks on the left. Knives on the right. Spoons wherever they won't get ideas. I reach for the good napkins.
"Not those," Grandma announces, appearing with Tupperware like a fairy godmother of leftovers. "Those are for guests.""We have guests," I say."Guests we like," she says, gliding past. "Also, I brought yam casserole. Don't ask what's in it. If it jiggles, it's festive."
The front door bursts open. Uncle Kelbo arrives wearing a sweater that might be sentient. He's carrying a glass dish of something neon and wobbly."Behold!" he declares. "Cran-berry-ish surprise. You can taste colors."
"Kelbo," Mom calls from the pantry court without looking, "no experimental sides.""It's traditional!" he protests."On what planet?" I ask.Kelbo winks. "Great question."
From the living room: "Is there a 'no tinsel' rule?" Alex calls.Mom: "Yes."Alex: "Follow-up: how do we feel about 'selective tinsel'?"Mom: "We don't."Alex: "Copy that, we do not feel."
Maxine appears at my elbow, stealing an olive like a jewel thief. "Do we think the mystery guest is cute? Should I be emotionally prepared?""For a guest? Always," I say. "For the mystery part? Never."
Dad re-emerges looking like a man who just negotiated a hostage release with the refrigerator. "Good news," he says. "We're using the good tablecloth.""That's not news," Mom says, following him with authority. "That's protocol."
Doorbell. Everybody freezes like we just heard the theme music.
Mom smooths her apron. "Positions."
I hustle to the door and swing it open.
"Professor Crump?" I say. Because it's Professor Crump. In a turkey sweater. Holding flowers like an apology he hasn't made yet.
He blinks, surprised to be recognized without dramatic lighting. "Happy Thanksgiving! I—ah—come bearing grading leniency and lilies."
Maxine beams. "Called it. Cute."Mom's smile recalibrates. "Professor. Welcome. Shoes off, magic off, opinions optional."Crump steps in, already trying not to step on the rug. "Of course. I only brought one opinion and it's about gravy viscosity."
Kelbo materializes at his side. "Do you want to taste colors?"Crump: "Tempting, but my insurance is wary."
We funnel everyone toward the dining room. The table looks… shockingly adult. I am proud. No one should look too closely at the napkin swans; a few are just ducks with aspirations.
"Okay," Mom announces, clapping once. "Seating." She points like an air-traffic controller. "Grandma here. Kelbo there where he can't see the thermostat. Alex opposite me so I can supervise 'selective' anything. Professor Crump between me and Jerry—neutral zone. Maxine, by me. You," she says, eyeing me, "ham-person, endcap."
We sit. For a moment, it's perfect—warm, loud, ours.
"Let's do a quick gratitude lap," Mom says. "Short sentences, real feelings, no monologues."
"Grateful for family," Dad says. "And for store-bought pie.""Grateful for—whatever this is," Kelbo says, jiggling his dish."Grateful for secrets," Maxine mumbles, which is not ominous at all."Grateful for my students," Crump says, shooting me a micro-nod. "And for any meal where the probability of explosion stays under twenty percent.""Grateful for separate bedrooms," Alex says, then sips water very fast.Mom raises an eyebrow. Alex smiles like a person who absolutely meant board games.
My turn. "Grateful for ham," I say. "And for… this. All of it."
It hangs there for a second—real, simple, good. Then Kelbo leans over, all curiosity. "So, Professor. Hypothetically, if one were to reheat cranberry-ish surprise with a low-grade levitation charm—"
"Kelbo," Mom says. Warning tone."—strictly to aerate the flavor profile—""Kelbo."
Too late. He wiggles his fingers. The neon dish rises like a suspicious moon.
"Do not—" Mom starts.
Boing.
It bounces. It squelches. It ricochets off the chandelier and slaps into the ceiling, where it decides gravity is for quitters. Everyone looks up at the new, shimmering skylight of doom.
Silence. Then the ceiling makes a… choice. Cran-goop begins to rain.
Grandma calmly opens her Tupperware and holds it over her plate like a shield.Alex dives under the table.Maxine shrieks and laughs and shrieks again.Dad closes his eyes and whispers, "We should've stayed downstairs."Crump, deadpan: "Viscosity noted."
Mom takes one long breath, then points at Kelbo without looking away from the cranberry weather. "You're on mop duty. For a week. In two dimensions."
I grab the ham and pass slices like a relief worker. "Thanksgiving hail. Classic."
The storm slows. The ceiling drips give up. We're sticky, but intact.
Mom straightens her apron, re-sets her smile, and lifts her glass. "As I was saying," she says, with the calm of a person who has seen worse and labeled it Tuesday, "I'm grateful for family. Even when it… rains dessert."
We clink. We eat. We pretend the cranberry on the chandelier is a festive ornament and not a red comet waiting for act two.
And for a while—somehow—everything is going right. Right up until the doorbell rings again.
"Uh," Maxine says, eyes widening. "I may have invited one more guest."
Blackout. Laugh track.
Doorbell. Freeze-frame. Everyone glances up like the ceiling cranberry is about to announce a guest.
Maxine's eyes go wide. "I may have invited one more guest."
Mom smooths her apron. "Positions."
I swing the door open.
She breezes in before the hello—oversized sunglasses, paint-smeared scarf, tote that reads THIS IS MY PORTABLE CHAOS. She smells like turpentine and bakery sugar.
"Aunt Megan?" I say.
"Justin, my scholar!" She hugs me hard enough to realign my spine, then spots Alex. "Alexandra, my hurricane!"
Alex launches; they spin. Maxine claps like a seal at a magic show.
Behind us, the adult temperature drops ten degrees.
Dad: jaw set.Mom: smile with warning labels.Uncle Kelbo: the look of a man whose hobby just got a better agent.Grandma: "¡Mi niña!" Arms open, already forgiving things no one's confessed to yet.
From the kitchen: a polite throat-clear. Professor Crump, in a deeply sincere turkey sweater, stands by the stove holding lilies and a wooden spoon like lab equipment. "Happy Thanksgiving," he says, testing the gravy's viscosity with scientific respect. "It is approaching optimal nap density."
"Shoes off," Mom says, hospitality through gritted grace.
Megan kicks one boot into the exact spot someone will trip later and toe-nudges the other under a console table. "Oops. Gravity." She drops her tote; it chimes like a wind bell stuffed with forks. "I brought a piece for the table." She unfurls a wire mobile of cutlery, film negatives, and a single mysterious key.
Kelbo can't help himself. "That's… art."
"Correct," Megan says. "Domestic Orbit. Spoons are just moons that decided to help with soup."
Grandma: delighted. "Ay, qué bonita."Mom: "We love… hanging hazards."Crump, squinting up: "If this oscillates at the chandelier's natural frequency, we may experience… an event."
Maxine tugs Megan's sleeve. "Did you bring me anything?"
Megan boops her nose. "A story, later. With glitter. For now—emergency presents." Three tiny parcels appear. She gives one to Alex, one to me, splits the third, and hands the bigger half to Alex. "Don't tell anyone I have favorites. Except everyone."
Alex's: a lightning bolt tangled in a paintbrush pin. "Sick."Mine: a notebook—WRITE LIKE YOU MEAN IT. My throat does a small, embarrassing thing.Maxine: holographic crown stickers. "I'm a queen!"
"Table time," Mom calls. "Hands washed. Art… stationary."
We funnel in. The fork-mobile casts jittery shadows. The cranberry drizzle has mostly ceased; the chandelier looks like a crime scene with good taste.
Megan chooses the comfiest chair and reclines like she pays rent. "My back is fragile. Artist spine."
Dad mutters, "Your timeline is fragile," to a napkin.
Crump slips into the seat between Mom and Dad—the neutral zone—still cradling lilies. "I brought these as an apology in advance for whatever happens," he says mildly.
"Gratitude lap," Mom declares. "Short, honest, no monologues."
"Family," Dad says. "And store-bought pie.""Thermostat sovereignty," Grandma adds, not looking at Kelbo."Experimental cuisine," Kelbo says, patting his neon dish like a pet that recently bit him."Secrets," Maxine says, somehow less ominous and more hobby every time."Ham," I say. "And… this."Crump: "My students. And a meal where the probability of explosion remains under twenty percent."Megan: "Alex and Justin," she says, shameless. "And… fine, Maxine. But mostly Alex and Justin."
"Lovely," Mom says. "Let's eat—carefully."
We pass plates. Megan treats "carefully" like a metaphor and secures the biggest slice of ham with raccoon reflexes. "Self-care," she says.
"Where are the good napkins?" Grandma asks.
Megan brightens. "Here!" She unveils linen squares hand-painted with her own face in various moods. "Functional art. Wipe your mouth on my ennui."
Mom blinks. "We have napkins.""Now you have statement napkins," Megan says, swapping them in. "Also, Theresa, I borrowed your crystal candlesticks for a still life and replaced them with sentiment."
Dad attempts a swallow. "Megan—those were—""Fragile," she nods. "Like my back."
We eat. It's good. The kids orbit Megan; she catches everything and tosses back jokes like confetti. Grandma keeps sliding her best bites. Mom keeps sliding her the look. Dad recalculates candlestick prices. Kelbo debates an art duel with a nap. Crump quietly tops off water glasses and murmurs to me, "Your fork-to-plate cadence suggests reduced nightmares. Promising."
For a minute, it's the kind of chaos that feels like home.
Megan taps her glass with a fork from the mobile (which wobbles, offended)."Tiny announcement," she says. "I proposed turning the Waverly lobby into a community art space slash pop-up atelier. If approved: keys, volunteers, possibly the security deposit. Educational workshops for youths." She gestures at Alex and me like we're a grant she already spent.
Silence. One late cranberry drip lands like a period.
Mom's smile goes porcelain. "The lobby is a shared space.""It could share art," Megan says, sunny.Dad: "Last time you 'shared' art, the fire alarm wrote me a breakup letter."Kelbo: "And the pigeons and the mayor—"Megan: "Performance. He loved it. Eventually."Crump, tentative mediator: "A pilot weekend? Limited hours? Fire extinguisher access?"
Grandma pats Megan's hand. "Mi amor, ask your brothers first, sí?""I'm asking now," Megan beams. "See? Growth."
Mom lays down her fork like a sheathed sword. "After dinner, we clean. Then adults discuss your proposal. Children are not your 'youth volunteers' tonight. The lobby remains a lobby. The chandelier is not an installation."
Megan considers. "Counterproposal: I nap while you clean, because my art needs rest. Then we—"
"No," Dad and Mom say together.Crump, gently: "Consensus achieved."
Megan shrugs, unbothered, stage-whispers to us, "Later: names. Waverly Works.Lobby Lab.Gallery-ish."Alex grins. "Gallery-ish is iconic."I smile despite myself. It is.
"Dessert," Mom declares. "Store-bought pie. Which we love."
We serve slices. The fork-mobile ticks like a clock you can't hear until you can.
Megan lifts her slice. "To family," she says, suddenly sincere enough to sting a little. "Even when we're wrong about each other."Crump, raising water: "To error bars."
For a while—somehow—everything is going right. Jokes land. Cranberry stays put. Pie tastes like truce.
Right up until Maxine—seeking a better view—tugs the cord of the fork-mobile.
Tick. Tangle. Rip.
The mobile hooks the chandelier. The chandelier unhooks reality.
Metallic scream. Slow-motion, cranberry-lacquered avalanche descends toward Mom, Dad, Aunt Megan, and—because he valiantly stood to shield the lilies—Professor Crump.
Crump, with terrible calm: "Ah. Resonance."
Blackout. Laugh track. And that's how the end begins.
...
We'd just about wrangled the chandelier back into behaving when the night started to wind down for real. Coats appeared. Leftovers multiplied. The front hall turned into an airport gate.
"Text me if the cranberry starts orbiting again," Uncle Kelbo said, cradling his neon dish in a Tupperware like it was an injured bird. Mom slid a mop into his free hand without breaking eye contact. "Souvenir," she said. He saluted, already regretting tomorrow.
Aunt Megan kissed Grandma, then me, then Alex twice for balance. "My scholar, my hurricane," she murmured, tucking the enamel pin on Alex's jacket just so. She shoved her hand-painted napkins into my arms. "Adopt these. Your mother said I can't keep art near fire." She leaned close. "I'll be back. For now is a scam."
Grandma did her rounds—forehead taps, whispered blessings, an extra roll in my pocket like contraband comfort. "Call me when you heat the collards," she told Mom, as if greens require helpline support.
Professor Crump stood by the door in his sincere turkey sweater, holding the lilies he'd heroically shielded earlier. "Delightful chaos," he said, as if grading it. "Office hours resume Monday; please hydrate. Viscosity is everyone's friend." He shook Dad's hand, then bowed slightly to Mom, who gave him a to-go pie like a peace treaty.
We were halfway through the chorus of goodbyes—coat swishes, elevator dings, the soft thud of Megan's boot left exactly where someone would trip later—when my phone buzzed in my pocket.
ZEKE is calling…HARPER is calling…
I put it on speaker. "You're on with the Waverly circus," I said.
"Happy Thanksgiving, nerds!" Harper's voice, bright and fizzy. "We survived the cousins."
Zeke chimed in, deadpan warm. "And thrived. I am the undisputed monarch of family Uno. Bow."
"How was your day?" Alex asked, already grinning.
"Great," Harper said. "My mom tried a new stuffing recipe and didn't cry, which is growth. We did gratitude jar, and my little brother wrote 'Wi-Fi,' which, honestly, same."
"Also," Zeke added, "my uncle deep-fried a turkey in the driveway and did not light anything on fire. The neighborhood applauded. We watched movies. I ate three pies. Not slices. Pies."
Maxine squeezed in next to the phone. "We had ceiling cranberry," she reported proudly. "And art napkins with faces."
"Iconic," Harper said. "Ten out of ten, would screenshot."
From the doorway, Megan called, "Tell Zeke and Harper I love them more than tradition!""They heard you," I said."We accept," Zeke replied. "Please mail pie."
The elevator dinged again. Kelbo shuffled in, juggling mop and neon Tupperware. Grandma waved like royalty. Professor Crump lifted the lilies in farewell. Megan blew us a kiss that somehow hit both me and Alex at once.
"Group hug the phone," Harper said.We did. It was dumb. It helped.
"Okay, go be festive without us," Zeke said. "Text if the chandelier does a sequel.""Or if Megan opens a gallery in your lobby," Harper added."Bold of you to assume she hasn't," Alex said.
We hung up to the soft hush of the hallway, the click of the latch, and the lingering smell of pie and paint. For a minute, the Waverly felt almost quiet.
Almost.
Time slowed to a standstill.
The kitchen hummed like a tired engine. Mom wiped down the counter with one hand and held Dad's with the other—knuckles white, wedding ring clinking the edge of a bowl every few seconds: tick, tick, tick. The cranberry still constellated the chandelier, dried into red glass veins. A lily from Crump's bouquet had fallen onto the stove and gone brown at the edges, smelling faintly of burnt sugar.
Alex stood beside me, close enough that our sleeves touched. She watched me with that look she keeps reserved for fires she can't put out—loving, yes, but shadowed, like her pupils had learned a new shape. Maxine wasn't far—at the living room table, hunched over leftovers, shoving cold turkey into her mouth with both hands, cheeks full, happy and feral.
Dread rose like bad heat. The new and old scars along my wrists prickled; a mean itch crawled under the skin where no scratching could reach. My heartbeat lost the beat—stumbled, sprinted, fell, got up wrong. Breath went thin. The room narrowed until sound turned granular: the fridge's rattle, the radiator's hiss, Grandma's Tupperware clicking itself shut in the sink, somewhere, like teeth.
Then the darkness gave itself a spine.
He eased out of the hallway shadow the building never quite fixes. Ponytails. Hair roped into two tired knots, stringy and wet-looking, like he'd climbed out of a well that didn't have water. His eyes were mushed back in their sockets, not blind, just… sunken, as if sight had to travel farther to reach anything. His skin had that corpse-colored matte, peeling in quiet, obscene places, and his smile arrived before his lips did.
My knees locked. Ankles welded. Even my tongue went heavy. Whatever held me was gentle and absolute, like hands you don't want but don't dare fight.
He looked around, appreciative. Like a critic. Like he was touring the set of a life he planned to cancel.
When he spoke, the radiator answered.
"Happiness is but an illusion," he said, voice soft as dust. "All must come to an end. You're fortunate," he added, almost kind, "to have such a wonderful family. Including your friends."
He paused long enough for the lights to consider flickering.
"However, a life must be taken, and taken it shall. A weapon must be born, and tempered. Only through battle, loss, and blood,"—he savored the last word like a flavor—"will such a weapon come to be."
Silence folded over us. Mom's hand kept moving in tiny circles on the counter, though the cloth had stopped. Dad's jaw worked, grinding air. Maxine chewed and stared, unbothered, a kid at a scary movie who knows the monster can't cross the couch. Alex's fingers brushed mine—once, quick—and I couldn't even turn to meet her.
I wanted to scream. My throat filled with the shape of it. I wanted to go to him and finish what I should've finished, do it clean this time, do it final. Instead I was a pinned insect, catalogued and named.
Maybe this is what sleep deprivation does—makes the waking world soft at the edges until nightmares seep through the seams. Maybe he meant the lobby, the house, the people I loved. Maybe he meant me.
Ponytails tilted his head, listening to something I couldn't hear. The lily on the stove surrendered another brown petal. It drifted down, landed on the burner, curled into ash.
His smile widened—no teeth, somehow worse.
"Soon," he said, as if that were mercy.
The fridge kicked harder. The chandelier let go one last red tear. My heart missed again, then slammed so loud I tasted metal.
And then my body was mine—too much mine. Knees buckled. The room rushed back. Mom's voice broke first, sharp with my name. Alex caught my sleeve and hauled me upright like she'd been waiting.
The spot where he'd been was only shadow again, the kind the Waverly always has. It felt colder now. It felt hungry... It felt like a warning.
Alex's fingers bit through my sleeve and found bone. "Justin, you okay?" she asked—soft, but with that edge she gets when she's already counting exits. Her grip was loving, worried; her thumb drew a tiny, frantic circle just below my collarbone, like she could sand the panic out of me.
I turned to her and made my mouth do the thing. "Yeah," I said, the word catching on a throat that still tasted like pennies. I stretched a smile over my teeth anyway. "Everything is fine."
She didn't buy it. Not really. Her eyes flicked—quick—to where my cuff had ridden up, to the pale ladder of old cuts and the angry new itch beneath. Her hand tightened, then eased, like she'd decided not to spook a skittish animal. Somewhere behind us, Mom said my name and pretended to fuss with a dish towel. Dad pretended not to watch. Maxine crunched cold turkey like gravel, unconcerned. The fridge coughed. The chandelier let go one last red bead that hit the tablecloth and bloomed.
"Okay," Alex said, matching my lie because she loved me, not because she believed me. Her forehead touched mine for a heartbeat—steady, borrowed—and then she stepped back just enough to keep holding on.
I loved her for that.
...
#ALICE Pov#
We were sprawled on the grass with canvases propped against our knees—Edward and Bella nearby, Renesmee between us with a fistful of brushes—when the breeze curled up against my skin like a cat choosing a lap. Wolves dozed at the treeline in lazy sentry arcs; a few of the Denali cousins drifted in and out of conversation. Everywhere I looked, someone smiled into someone else: vampire to mate, wolf to imprint, human-turned to the person who made the ache stop.
I watched them and felt the old emptiness yawn. Only Leah met my eyes and didn't pretend. She knew. No imprint. No twin flame. No hand that made the noise go quiet. It was petty, but jealousy still pricked—thin needles under marble skin.
Then it happened, and I regretted even that small, mean feeling.
The light went grainy first, as if the day were being erased with a cheap eraser. Colors bled to ash. Sound stepped backward: the clink of jars, the hush of pine, Renesmee's laugh—all dropped underwater. A pressure gathered behind my eyes, mean and insistent.
"Alice—" Edward's voice thinned across the space at the same instant Bella straightened, her shield flaring so subtly the grass leaned. Emmett was suddenly at my shoulder like a wall had grown there.
Tears slipped before the vision even formed. Warm—impossible. I tasted metal. Blood. My blood. It ran in thin, perfect lines down a face that wasn't supposed to cry.
The blankness pulled tight and then showed me—him. Not here, not now, but near enough to feel like breath on my neck. Ponytails. Skin gone corpse-matte, peeling at the edges; eyes sunk deep as if sight had to claw its way up from a well. He smiled like a crack in plaster.
The field snapped back, but wrong. The air still felt powdered. The brushes in my hand had gone still.
"Alice…" they began—Edward, Bella—careful, as if the syllables might break me.
I couldn't look at them. I looked at the place in the trees where the vision had hung like a torn flag. My voice arrived as a whisper I didn't recognize.
"I'm so, so sorry, my love," I said—to the absence I suddenly felt more than the sun. To the future I'd just seen pick up a weapon and start sharpening. To the person who has always been the answer and was somehow, impossibly, not here when the question arrived.
The breeze moved again, gentle as before. It didn't help.
Leah ran to me, Edythe matching her pace, dirt puffing under their feet. Renesmee's paintbrush froze mid-stroke; Bella's shield thickened until the air hummed. Emmett's hand hovered, not quite touching, like he was afraid I would shatter if he did.
"Alice, what was that—" Edythe began, and stopped, head flinching at the flood of my thoughts. Whatever she heard in there made hes eyes go flat with focus. Bella slid closer to her, palm on her back, grounding.
A sound left me—small, broken. More blood-tears carved hot paths down my cheeks. There was nothing I could do to stop what was coming. Nothing to blunt the pain my mate would feel. I swallowed the uselessness and turned to Leah because she, of all of them, would understand the shape of an empty future.
"Our mate is about… about to experience grief like no other," I said.
Leah recoiled as if the words were a spark. "Our?" she and Edward said together—hers shocked, his sharp, interrogative. The wolves at the treeline lifted their heads in the same breath. Bella's eyes flicked to my face, then to Leah's; Renesmee leaned into her mother's side and didn't ask the question hovering in her mouth.
"What do you mean—our?" Leah pressed, voice roughened at the edges. She looked furious at the air, at fate, at anything that would dare make a promise and snatch it back.
I opened my mouth and the vision's aftertaste—ash and iron—washed up again. The name wouldn't come. Only the picture: a future split in two and stitched back wrong; a bond that should have been singular, mirrored and strained; a loss big enough to bend us both around it.
Edward's jaw worked, hearing what I couldn't say. "She's not lying," he murmured to no one and everyone. "It's… complicated."
Leah's hands curled into fists. For a second, I saw it—her grief flaring into something weapon-bright. My own chest echoed it.
"Complicated or not," she said, stepping closer until our shoulders touched, "no one takes our anything without going through me first."
The wind shifted through the pines like an answer that wasn't one. Somewhere far off, a bird startled. The day tried to pretend it was still a day.
I wiped the red from my mouth with the back of my wrist. "We won't let them," I said, and felt how thin the words were against what was coming.
Something inside me snapped into place—not calm, exactly, but the cold clarity you get when the car's already skidding and you decide which tree you'll miss.
My voice cut the meadow in half. "Tell Carlisle to come, I need to get in contact with our friends the Lovegoods, Now!"