Chapter 2 The Memory I Buried

For several seconds, I couldn't move because Lucien's words kept repeating inside my head, each repetition making the room feel smaller and the air harder to breathe.

You were the one who killed me.

I stared at him, waiting for the cruel smile that would tell me he was joking, but his expression held no amusement, only a terrible sadness that made me remember the boy who used to sit beside me on the school rooftop whenever the world became too much for either of us.

"Take it back," I whispered.

Lucien lowered his eyes to the dead woman on the floor before looking at me again. "I wish I could."

"I didn't kill you." My voice rose despite my effort to control it. "I watched your house burn, and I spent five years believing there was nothing I could have done to save you, so don't stand here and tell me that I caused your death."

"I didn't say you wanted me dead."

"Then explain what you mean!"

A sharp crack came from the kitchen wall, and the red symbols began to glow. The blood covering the floor trembled as though something beneath the apartment was pulling it toward an invisible drain.

Lucien caught my arm before I could step closer.

"We need to leave."

"Not until you tell me what happened."

"Adrian, that woman is dead, and whatever killed her knows you're here. We can argue about our past when we're somewhere safe."

I hated that he sounded reasonable, especially because some part of me still wanted to trust him. I pulled my arm free and raised my hand, drawing a protective circle over the floor with two fingers.

The spell ignited in a thin blue light.

Immediately, something slammed against the inside of the apartment door.

I flinched, but Lucien moved between me and the sound, his shadow stretching across the walls in long, unnatural shapes. For one frightening moment, I saw the outline of something enormous behind him, a creature with curved horns and too many arms.

Then it vanished.

"Your magic is stronger than it was before," he said.

I swallowed. "And you're not human anymore."

"No."

He answered so simply that I almost wished he had lied.

"What happened to you?"

Lucien looked at me as though the truth might hurt more than any weapon I could use against him.

"I died in that fire," he said. "Something found me before my soul could leave this world, and it offered me another chance to live. I accepted because I thought I could come back to you."

My chest tightened.

"You came back for me?"

"I have spent five years trying to find my way home." His gaze held mine, intense enough to make my pulse stumble. "But the thing that saved me didn't do it out of kindness. It wants something, and I think it has finally discovered how to get it."

Before I could ask what it wanted, the apartment door burst inward.

A creature crawled through the broken frame, its limbs bent at angles that made my stomach turn. Its skin looked like wet ash, and its face was smooth except for a vertical mouth that opened from its forehead to its chin.

I stumbled backward as it turned toward me.

Lucien's eyes flashed gold.

"Stay behind me!"

This time, I didn't argue because the creature lunged before I could finish drawing my next spell.

Lucien caught it by the throat and drove it into the wall. The impact cracked the plaster, but the creature twisted its body around his arm and sank its teeth into his shoulder.

He didn't even cry out.

Instead, dark veins spread beneath his skin as he forced the creature away, and the shadows around his body sharpened into long black blades.

I watched in horror as he drove one through its chest.

The creature shrieked, collapsing into a pile of ash that scattered across the floor.

For a moment, the apartment fell silent except for my uneven breathing.

Then Lucien staggered.

I caught him before he could fall, my hands closing around his waist as he leaned heavily against me. His coat was torn, and beneath it, his shoulder had split open, revealing blackened flesh that moved like something alive.

"Lucien?"

"I'm fine," he muttered.

"You're bleeding black!"

"It's a minor inconvenience."

I almost laughed at his ridiculous arrogance, but the sound caught in my throat when I noticed his fingers trembling against my back.

For the first time, I understood that whatever he had become could still suffer.

I pressed my palm against his wound and whispered a healing spell, allowing my magic to flow into his body. The moment our power touched, a sudden flash of light filled the room.

And I remembered.

I remembered standing in the basement of the Blackwood house, crying as Lucien held my face between his hands. I remembered the flames climbing the walls and a strange voice whispering that one of us had to die.

Most terrifying of all, I remembered the silver knife in my hand.

Lucien had looked at me with tears in his eyes.

You have to trust me, Adrian.

Then I had driven the blade into his chest.

I tore my hand away with a strangled cry.

"No. No, that wasn't real."

Lucien's wounded shoulder began to heal, but he watched me with an expression that told me he had seen the change in my face.

"You remembered something."

I backed away from him, shaking my head.

"You knew."

"Adrian-"

"You knew I might have killed you, and you still came here pretending you wanted another chance with me!"

His face hardened, but he didn't approach.

"I came back because I love you, and because the person who altered your memories is preparing to finish what started that night."

"Who altered them?"

Before he could answer, a phone began ringing inside the dead woman's apartment.

The sound came from beneath the kitchen table, where a black mobile phone lay beside her outstretched hand.

I picked it up with trembling fingers.

There was no number on the screen, only a message that appeared as I watched.

STOP ASKING LUCIEN WHAT HAPPENED. ASK HIM WHY HE LET YOU LIVE.

My stomach twisted as another message arrived.

HE REMEMBERS EVERY SECOND OF YOUR BETRAYAL.

I slowly raised my eyes toward Lucien.

He stood motionless in the darkness, his golden eyes fixed on the phone, while the shadows behind him began to move again.

"Tell me the truth," I said, forcing myself to meet his gaze. "Did you come back because you love me, or because you need my magic?"

Lucien's jaw tightened, and for the first time since his return, he seemed unable to find an answer.

Then he stepped closer, lowering his voice until only I could hear him.

"Both."

Before I could respond, every light in the apartment went out, and something whispered from inside my head in a voice that sounded exactly like my own.

"He is lying, Adrian. The monster you love is the reason you survived."

And somewhere in the darkness, Lucien began to scream.