**(Elle's POV – The Choice)**
The pen was cold. The ledger—*alive.*
Elle could feel it pulsing in her grip, its pages whispering promises and threats.
*"Sign your name,"* Dora murmured, her ghostly fingers brushing Elle's wrist. *"Or give it theirs."*
Tyler's laughter echoed down the basement stairs. *"She won't. Too *good*, right, Santiago?"*
Elle's jaw clenched.
Then—*she moved.*
Not her name. Not Tyler's.
**>>NORTHFORD HIGH.<<**
The ledger *shrieked.*
---
**(Dora's POV – The Unbinding)**
Fire erupted from the pages—not orange, but *white*, devouring ink and lies alike.
Dora felt it first in her bones: the unraveling. The ledger hadn't just held names; it had *anchored* them. Now, the entire school was kindling.
Tyler screamed as his family portraits blackened. Mr. Halden lunged—not to stop the flames, but to *hurl himself into them.*
*"Finally,"* he gasped before crumbling to ash.
Callum grabbed Elle's arm, but she shook him off, staring at Dora.
*"Go,"* Elle choked through the smoke. *"You're free."*
Dora reached for her—
And dissolved like a sigh.
---
**(Epilogue – Two Weeks Later)**
The newspapers called it an electrical fire.
No bodies found—not even Tyler's.
Elle sat on the steps of the boarded-up school, flipping a charred scrap between her fingers. The only surviving piece of the ledger.
**>>belong<<**
Callum dropped beside her, their shoulders brushing. *"You okay?"*
She pocketed the scrap. Some curses didn't die. They *waited.*
*"Ask me tomorrow,"* she said.
Somewhere, a locker door creaked.