Page 124 of She Haunts Me Still
When she turns, Ezra is bent over, coughing as smoke closes in around him. Leaving just enough space for her to see his eyes, suddenly green again. Several more beams of wood fall with a violent clatter, flames sparking furiously. Panic takes hold of her as she realizes he’s going to be trapped.
“Come with me,” Mallory begs, reaching into the clotted gray cloud. “Grab my hand.”
“Get out!” Ezra yells again. “It wants me to kill you. Getout.”
But she can’t abandon him here, not like this. Tears blur her vision as she thinks of his hands returning life to her body that afternoon in the chapel, how he awoke something in her that wasn’t meant to last.
“Please, Ezra,” she sobs. The smoke stings her eyes; she can hardly make out anything more than a few inches in front of her.
But Ezra is unrelenting.
“Go. Don’t fucking die in here with me, Jules.” His voice is raw, and the ache in her chest splits and splits as she realizes he’s crying, too.
“No. I won’t leave you.” Everything hurts, pain bursting in her lungs as she reaches for a man whose mouth is drenched in her blood. A man who, despite everything, she cannot, will not, let suffocate alone.
She chokes on her sobs. On the smoke. She can’t breathe, she can’t see, she—
“Mal.”
Ezra exhales her name—her real name—like a prayer.
And it breaks whatever she has left.
“Leave,” he adds, quiet and resolute. “Please.”
Despair crashes and crashes inside her. She should say something meaningful, something profound, something she’d want to be her last words to him. But all she can come up with is—
“I’m sorry, too.”
Mallory stumbles to the door, practically throwing herself into the midnight air. She screams for help, but her voice is raspy, choked. Defeated, she sinks to the earth, surrendering to a wave of shattered sobs as blood trickles down her body. Ezra nearly killed her. She tried to save him anyway. But she didn’t. She never could.
And as she watches the chapel go up in flames, all she can think of is Ezra in the dressing room, telling her how he’d linger between worlds to haunt the woman he loved. She scrambles to hold on to the way his voice sounded around those words, but it already feels distant. Like a dream.
Soon, she’ll have nothing left of him at all.
36
Mallory bursts into Corwin Hall feeling as though her lungs are about to explode. She takes the stairs two at a time, heart pounding. In the distance, she can hear sirens.
After she hauled herself out of the chapel, she’d called 911 while a small flock of students gathered nearby. Their hands covered their mouths in tandem as they watched the white wooden building dissolve in flames against the starless sky.
Are you okay?one had asked, crouching in the wet leaves. Another maniacal laugh nearly bubbled from her chest at the question. She was covered in ash and bleeding, but sure. She was fine, fine, fine—
Mallory didn’t wait for the EMTs to arrive. Didn’t wait for the fire trucks. Didn’t wait to answer questions or have lights shined in her face this time. She’d stumbled to her feet and dragged herself to Saskia’s dorm.
If that dark creature died in the chapel with Ezra, then the curse must be lifted, she reasons as she flies up the stairwell. The idea should fill her with hope, but instead, all she feels is violent trepidation.
And when she swings Saskia’s dorm door open, confirmation of her worry hits her like stone.
Saskia is sitting up in bed, staring out the window in silence. Her eyes are fully opal, and her skin has turned an even deeper shade of grayish green. Mallory’s stomach flips as she spies the scarves that have been fastened upon Saskia’s wrists and ankles, the knots digging into discolored flesh.
“Sas!”
“Oh my god,” Arden breathes when she sees Mallory’s appearance. “What happened to you?”
“It didn’t work,” Mallory whispers, ignoring Arden’s question. She starts across the room to Saskia, each step heavy with defeat. Maybe there’s no way to end this cycle. Maybe everyone she’s ever loved is meant to be ripped from her life.
Maybe Ezra was right. She will end up alone.
