the black gauze shrouding its face, I saw a flash of sharp white teeth.
“Death is the fate of those who anger the Gods,” it rumbled, as my vision clouded at the edges, every limb feeling wretchedly heavy. “But God has a wish to toy with you still. Here is where I leave you, demon. I am not so foolish as to defy the God.”
My tears blurred the road ahead until I couldn’t drive anymore. I pulled over, surrounded by the deep darkness of the forest on either side as I clutched the grimoire page and sobbed weakly, helplessly.
Fucking helpless, that’s what I was. A liability, a flailing foolish girl who couldn’t save herself, who had to have others go into the battle for her. I’d never wanted to be that. I’d always told myself that I could handle anything and everything the world sent my way.
But now...now I knew.
It had been love.
Love when he came back to be sure my house was protected.
Love when he watched me as a silent guard.
Love when he turned over his freedom, his name, to me.
Love when he disappeared into the dark, even though he was afraid, even though he didn’t think he would come back.
The paper shook in my hands. The old page was so worn, it was remarkable it held together at all. And there, at the top, the symbol that was his name. It was familiar now that I looked at it, but without that paper I was certain its lines and curves would have been utterly lost to me.
I couldn’t leave him, not when he’d never left me.
My tires skidded on gravel as I wrenched the car around, speeding back down the road. Cheesecake was squashed against my side, panting, and I wished I’d left him at Inaya’s. I wished I hadn’t put him in danger too.
No one was going to die for me. Love meant never fighting a battle alone. And maybe I was mostly helpless, and maybe I really was just a goddamn liability, but I wasn’t a coward.
I’d been venturing into the darkness my whole life. I wasn’t going to stop when it mattered most.
I locked Cheesecake in the house and sent a rapid, desperate text to Inaya begging her to pick him up in the morning. I didn’t know if I’d come back. I didn’t know if I’d ever have a chance to explain what was happening, or if I’d get to walk in my best friend’s wedding, or if I’d graduate. I didn’t know if I’d talk to my parents again, and I realized that I should have called them more.
I should have told them I loved them more.
I should have hugged Inaya longer.
I should’ve told Leon I loved him.
But it wasn’t over yet. It didn’t have to end like this.
I didn’t know which way Leon had gone. All I knew was that if I ran into the woods far enough, I’d find him. I had to.
The woods were a different beast at night. I had the knife clutched in one hand and my phone with its flashlight on in the other. The grimoire page was folded up and shoved into my pocket. The flashlight cut through the darkness in a single pale beam, illuminating the forest floor of soft pine needles and damp leaves, blackened grass and numerous mushrooms.
This wasn’t the forest I knew. Something evil had spread its roots here and it was growing, throttling the life it found. My light fell over the form of a large, twitching spider, its limbs jolting in the air as pale mushroom stalks sprouted from its thorax. The air was thick and difficult to breath, like the sensation of jumping into a freezing pool. It was so dark. Everything looked the same. The trees went on and on in an endless army of dark silhouettes.
My light fell on a broken tree. The trunk looked as if it had been hit with a rocket, splintered into pieces, the entire tree leaning precariously with all its weight supported by what little wood remained. The ground was torn up, the dirt marred in deep, thin trenches, as if scratched by claws.
As I moved my trembling light away, I saw the blood.
Streaked red and stark across the trees, dark and pooled on the leaves. I could smell it, sharp and metallic beneath the stench of mold. The light shook in my hand as I shone it slowly over the scene, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, cold, sickening