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“This is an absolute mess,” I muttered.
Out of the corner of my eye, something moved.
I startled, jerking upright. When I spun, there was nothing there. I searched the sectional couch and cheap coffee table for any hidden threats. Nothing leapt out at me as I stepped over Maddox’s fallen clothing.
Just when my heart started to settle, a ghost materialized in front of me. She screamed, her mouth stretching too wide. I yelped and stumbled back only for another ghost to appear beside her. It was the two women that the soul-torn wolf had killed.
I opened my mouth to beseech them when another ghost appeared. His face had been ripped open, making his mouth lopsided as he screamed. Their voices filled the house, making me clamp my hands over my ears. I bent in an attempt to get away from the sound, but there was no escape.
“Stop! Please stop!” I begged.
They couldn’t hear me.
Dropping, I desperately grabbed for one of Maddox’s shirts. I tied it around my head like a bandana with the hopes that it would dampen my abilities. Nothing changed. Their voices jabbed at my skull like a handful of sharp nails being hammered into bone.
“Why are you doing this to me?” The pain radiated down my spine. “Stop! What did I do to you?”
The god-awful pain reached into my chest. It wrapped around my heart. My vision blurred and darkened. At first, I thought I was slipping into unconsciousness. Then, color returned. The pain refused to relent. If anything, it evolved.
My blurry vision sharpened into the face of a man looming over me. At first, a pang of familiarity chimed in the back of my mind even though I was certain I’d never seen him before. Then I remembered. This was the man on the street in Syracuse. This was the soul-torn wolf.
My body refused to move. I didn’t have control over it…or there wasn’t much of it left. I realized, belatedly, that I was experiencing the ghosts’ deaths all at once. There was nothing to move. He’d torn them all apart in different ways, leaving me nothing in this coalescing vision.
There was one thing he did the same each time. He lifted his hand above my chest…their chests…our chests. Sharp claws burst out of his fingertips. I knew what would happen next. I wanted to get out of their bodies, but the strength of their grief trapped me in this position. My heart lurched right as he plunged those claws into our flesh. At first, it was just pressure. The pain didn’t register until his fingers wrapped around our hearts. Then a searing fire spread across our chests.
I screamed, but it wasn’t really me here. When I opened my mouth, the screams of the other ghosts came out. The sound shredded my eardrums and sent pins across my skull. My body chilled, not from shock, though. This was something else. It was as if everything that made memewas being pulled out.
It left their bodies nothing more than hollow husks. The scream on my lips died. My skin chilled. I was nothing.
The soul-torn shifter lifted my—theirhearts to his mouth and bit down. Blood splattered his face. It covered his lips and dribbled down his chin…all while he maintained eye contact.
When the vision blurred and faded, I came to with the ghosts all kneeling around me. They pulled their hands from my shoulders. The pain finally faded. I gulped down mouthfuls of air, my shoulders heaving.
When I looked up, the ghosts all touched the black voids in their chests. The soul-torn shifter had somehow captured the souls of his victims in their hearts. By consuming their hearts, he’d eaten their souls.
It was similar to how Maddox always fed on my arcana. There was a void that needed to be filled. The gaps in Vince’s soul begged for repair, but Vince chose to fill it with the lives of others.
It made me question what Maddox needed to fill, and what would happen when he could no longer fill it.
“Is it because he’s trying to fix the gaps in his soul?” I asked the ghosts for confirmation.
They couldn’t respond. They weren’t souls. This was the memory of a person, stuck here because death could be funny like that. It was as if the trauma of their deaths had left an imprint on the world in the shape of a soul.
That’s why I couldn’t talk to them. They weren’t like Perse, who was a soul.
It all made sense now. Though, it was still just as alarming when I looked up at the flickering shades surrounding me. There were more now. They circled me, trapping me among them. I moved to get to my feet. Together, they flashed, forcing me to a halt.
“Can…can I move?” I asked softly.
They were shades. I couldn’t reason with them. They weren’t going to talk back or give me permission or anything like that. I had to hold my ground because they weren’t going anywhere. Despite my chilling fear, I stood and took in all the faces around me in the hope that I would be able to recognize them later.
In unison, their heads swiveled. They all looked towards the western wall. Mouths gaping open, they screamed.
I clamped my hands over my ears and ran through the wall of shades. I figured this meant that the soul-torn wolf had returned. At least they could properly identify him now. There was no mistaking who had killed these people.
Maddox was free of any guilt.
I wanted to tell him myself. He didn’t have to worry about his control. Maybe we’d had a problem earlier, but he’d stopped himself before hurting me. It’d just been…uncomfortable. I was willing to stand by him while he worked on that.
