It isn’t like I haven’t tried. I’ve tried repeatedly, but every path I take seems to have a loophole or a severe, more damaging consequence. Change a vision and I mess up the world more. Kill Stephan and Demetrius can still survive and go through the plan. I could kill all of them, including every last Death Walker, but the only way that would be possible is to create my own army that doesn’t include Alex, Laylen, Aislin, and the human being I somehow know is growing inside me.
A cool breeze appears out of nowhere, and a moment later, I hear heavy breathing from right behind me.
“Go away, Nicholas,” I say, slumping back in the chair with a heavy sigh. “That is, unless you’re ready to tell me what the ring’s for.”
Silence is my only answer.
I glance around at the kitchen, the locked back door, and the boarded windows. No one seems to be around, but the stillness makes me restless. I get up and peek in the living room with the strangest feeling someone’s watching me, but I can’t see anyone anywhere.
Scratching my head, I turn back, and my body instantly smacks into something. I quickly scoot away, blinking.
My hands fall to my side as my jaw smacks the floor at the sight of the ghost in front of me, a ghost that has brown hair, blue eyes, and features similar to mine.
“No . . . no . . . no . . .” No matter how many times I try to deny what’s in front of me, the truth remains standing there, raw and brutal like a punch to the jaw. “Mom?”
A sad smile touches her face. “Gemma, I’m so sorry”
GEMMA
I shake my head in denial, blinking my eyes, doing everything in my power to make this horrible nightmare end.
“You’re not dead. You can’t be.”
“Gemma, sweetie,” my mom says, still standing in front of me. “There’s no point wasting time trying to deny what’s right in front you. We don’t have time for that.”
I want to cry. Scream. Yell.
“But you can’t be dead. I-I barely had time to get to know you.”
“I have to be dead,” she says solemnly. “Otherwise, he would’ve used me to get to you.”
I don’t need to ask who he is.
“Stephan,” I bite his name out like it’s poison to my tongue. “He did this to you?”
She shakes her head, sighing exhaustedly. “I did it to myself.” She traces her finger along the inside of her wrist where the Mark of Malefiscus used to be. “I had to, or I’d have led Stephan straight to you.” Her hand falls to her side. “It was supposed to be this way. I don’t belong here, never have. I was always supposed to be part of death, whether it was in The Underworld or in the Afterlife as a ghost.”
The pain is so unbearable, so lung crushing, so breath stopping, so heart dying. Everyone is gone. My dad is locked up in his own mind, maybe forever. Alex is gone to who knows where. And now my mom is dead.
My hands tremble as my stomach winds into knots. “How did . . . how did you . . . die?”
She presses her lips together, and without saying anything, she wanders into the kitchen and takes a seat at the table. “That doesn’t matter. What does is that I’m here to help you.”
Tears sting my eyes. I want to hug her, but it’s not possible. The loneliness that possessed me for most of my life is resurfacing, and I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how to breathe, don’t know how to keep going when everything around me seems to be ending.
With wobbly legs, I join her at the table, taking a seat in the chair across from her. “Help me with what? Saving the world?”
“I’m here to help you figure out what you’re supposed to do.” Her gaze zeroes in on the ring on my finger. “I’m here to help you use that.”
I cover the ring with my hand. “I don’t want you to help me with that.” Hot tears spill down my cheeks, even though I try to fight them back. “What I want is for you to return to your body and keep living.”
“That’s not a possibility,” she says, reaching for my hand, but then pulls back, realizing she can’t touch me. “At least not for me.”
A few more tears fall from my eyes before what she’s saying