Page 108 of She Haunts Me Still

She grinds her teeth so hard she’s sure they’ll turn to dust.

“Will you at least wait until I’m dead to cut out my heart?” she asks. “Or will you rip it out while I’m still breathing?”

Ezra’s eyes shift with something that looks like grief. “Jules—”

“Oh,wait,” she hisses. Mallory twists her hand, grabbing his, and presses it to the space between her breasts. “You already did.”

For a moment, he just stares at her, the cold autumn air silent between them.

“I know,” he finally says.

Mallory shakes her head. “That’s it? You don’t have anything else to say?”

Ezra drops his hand. “I havesomuch to say to you, Jules. But not here. Not now. Tomorrow night at the chapel.” He bends his head toward hers. “Promise you’ll come.”

“No fucking way.” She wrenches out a laugh. “If I don’t, what will happen?”

He presses his lips together. “You know what will happen.”

The answer hits her all at once.

“Saskia,” she says. “She’ll offer herself instead. She won’t be able to help it.”

Ezra nods, the gesture resolute. Like he doesn’t want to admit it, either.

“But she’s not the one you want, she’s not the ‘right offering,’ ” Mallory continues. “You need me, because I’m Lily’s bloodline. I’m the one who should be carving out my heart for this demon. Just like my mother did. Just likehermother. And yet this damning was transferred to Saskia somehow. In a spell. A witch’s spell.” Mallory clenches her teeth again. “That’s the part I can’t figure out. Whyher? Why Saskia? And why has it set innow?”

At that, Ezra falls silent. And Mallory’s eyes narrow to slits.

“You know, don’t you?” she seethes, grabbing his coat. “Oh my god, Ezra.Tell me. Why Saskia? What does she have to do withanyof this?”

“Not here,” he says again, looking over his shoulder.

“Yeshere,” she snarls. “No more secrets. Ezra,please. I can’t—I can’t lose anyone else.”

For a second, she thinks he’s going to cave.

But then he shakes his head. “It will only hurt you.”

Another dark laugh cracks loose. “You think anything can hurt me more than you already have? Just tell me, or I’ll—”

“Jules, shhh,” Ezra interrupts with a condescending finger to her mouth. He relaxes his hand, fingers curling around her jaw almost tenderly. “I know how to help you. Just say you’ll be there tomorrow.”

She freezes as he strokes her face, the pad of his thumb sweeping her lower lip. His eyes darken, laser focused on her mouth, like he’s actually calculating the risk of kissing her. Like he’s wondering if she’d let him. But she doesn’t feel anything other than bile in her throat at the thought of his lips on hers ever again.

“Jules,” Mallory echoes, and the word is rotten on her tongue. Something that was once sweet, like fruit, but is now covered with fuzzy white mold. She twists away from him. “Listen to you. ‘You’re perfect,’ ‘you’re beautiful,’ ‘you ruined me.’ You’re so full of shit, it makes me sick.” She leans close enough for him to remember what her kiss tasted like. “You can’t even say my real fucking name.”

Before he can reply, Mallory dives for the knife in her pocket and holds it up to the long column of his throat.

“Tell me,” she demands. “Why Saskia?”

For a moment, they just stare at each other. The midnight breeze stirs her hair. She thinks about Ezra’s gaze under the string lights in the courtyard, how she cracked her heart open simply because he’d asked.

Mallory’s fingers sweat around the knife despite the cold, and she fights to hold her stony expression. Silently begs her hand not to shake.

But it does. The blade slips, drawing a thin line of blood from his neck.

And then, Ezra’s eyes darken as his face splits into a terrifying smile.