What? I struggled to process his words, but they just didn't make sense. I must've heard him wrong. "What did you say?"

He sighed and crossed the space between us. When he stopped, he towered over me, standing so close that I had to tilt my head up to look him in the eye.

His eyes were as hard as the emeralds they resembled. "You can't leave here," he said simply.

A short and slightly hysterical laugh burst from me. "What?" I said again, my voice shaking as if another unhinged laugh might escape me at any moment. "You're kidding, right?"

His grim look said otherwise.

"This is a joke," I continued babbling, grabbing at his shirt. My hand began to tingle. "This... This has to be a joke!"

He stared at me for a moment, then he shook his head.

My heart fluttered in my chest like a scared, panicked bird beating its wings helplessly against a cage. Releasing his shirt, I turned and ran for the door. Reaching for the handle, I—

An electric current shot through me, pushing me back. I staggered back. My hand burned. It glowed red, the white ridges of scar standing out against the swollen flush. What the...

Then I remembered. All those months ago, back when Polly and I were convinced that the Beast was all Luc's doing...

That day we had gone to his apartment. We had intended to break in and steal the last elusive ingredient for our misguided binding spell, but when we went to reach for the door... We were stopped, physically repelled by the protective barrier he used to keep out intruders out—human or otherwise.

This was the same thing, only now he was using it to keep me in.

Suddenly all the events of the day came rushing back, cast in a new light: his desire for a 'quiet day in'; the fully stocked fridge; the SIM card and the phone.

It had all been planned.

I span around to face him. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because it isn't safe for you out there," he said, walking across the room, closing the distance between us again.

I stumbled back, trying to get away—but I was cornered between the door and the wall. Shit.

"I'm sorry that it has to be like this, Rachel," Luc said, his voice soft. He reached out to brush my cheek, but I flinched away from him. He dropped his hand. "But I need to know you're safe while—"

"Safe from what?" I echoed. It came out as a whisper, my breath stolen.

"I-I don't know," he said. His gaze slid away, almost casually.

But I knew better.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "You don't know," I echoed, keeping my voice even. "But you have an idea, don't you?"

His eyes met mine. The softness was gone. Now they were guarded and cold. "Maybe."

"Well, what is it?"

He said nothing, but his jaw tightened as if he was keeping the secret clenched in his teeth.

I glared at him. "You promised," I hissed. "You said you wouldn't keep things from me anymore. You said we'd do this together! You promised!"

"Things changed," he said.

"What changed?" I shot back. "What happened? What's after me that's so horrible that I have to be locked in here like some princess in a tower?"

Luc exhaled, then stepped back to dig into the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a rough square of paper, folded in on itself, and held it out to me.

I snatched it out of his hand. The scrap was small, its top edge jagged and uneven, like it had been torn off a pad. As I tried to unfold it, my hands shook so badly that I fumbled, dropping the page.

It fluttered to the ground and fell open, and a girl looked up at me from the floor.

She was willow thin with dark skin and close-cropped black hair. A thin dress hung loosely off her narrow shoulders. Her large eyes were shadowed with thick lashes and they seemed to glitter with life even though she was just graphite on paper.

It was one of Ethan's drawings. It was a rough drawing—drawn with frenzied, twisting lines—but he had captured enough to make her recognizable. And I did recognize her, though last time I had seen her, she had been warped by the glass of the mirror.

She was of the ghost girls.

I looked back at Luc. "Why did you give me that? Did you find out something about her? About them? Do you know who she—"

"Her name is Raleigh," Luc said roughly. "And I knew her a long time ago."

My heart went cold. No... No way...

"I was seeing her," he continued, his voice dwindling to barely a whisper, "long before I had started seeing Lillian, before everything started..." He swallowed hard.

He didn't have to finish the sentence for me to know what he meant. Before the Beast started killing people...

"It was never serious," he continued, his eyes on the face on the floor. "So when she stopped answering my calls and texts, I figured she just didn't want to see me anymore. I had mostly forgotten about her, until now..."

I looked down at her. If she was one of my ghost girls now, that meant...

She was dead.

But how? When? And why was she—and all the others—after me? Had their 'warning' just a ruse to get me to trust them? I had never known her. Our only connection was...

"What about the others?" I demanded. "The other drawings—the other girls. Do you know them too?"

He shook his head again. "I didn't recognize anyone from the other drawings," he said. "Just her."

So he didn't know all of them—but he did know her. And me. There was a connection there, there had to be...

But what was it?

I stooped to pick up the page. "So are the ghost girls dangerous?" I asked. The girl in the drawing didn't look dangerous. Her expression was gentle, almost patient, as if she were just waiting for us to finish talking so she could say what she thought of the whole situation.

Instead of answering, Luc produced a deck of tarot, seemingly out of thin air. With a quick hand, he shuffled the deck then pulled a single card and held it up for me to see. He released the card and it stayed where it was, suspended in the air between us.

On its face was a shattered turret, chunks of stone falling from its walls, flames shooting from its narrow windows. People plunged from its heights. Their backs were alight, their mouths stretched wide in agonized screams.

"That doesn't look good," I muttered.

"No," Luc said, his face sombre. "It does not." He snatched back the card and shuffled it back into his deck. "As for the girls, honestly, I can't say," Luc said, finally giving me a reply to my question. "But after the séance, your cards changed... And that card showed up in your future."

"What doesn't it mean?"

Luc said nothing.

I sighed and rubbed at my temples. "Dammit, Luc, why didn't you just tell me? Instead of freaking me out with all—" I waved my arms around,"—this? If you had just explained yourself..."

He reached for my cheek again. This time I let him brush his fingers over my cheekbone and tuck a stray strand behind my ear. "I was going to," he said, and then gave a soft half laugh, "but I'm selfish. I just wanted to have a good day with you without worrying about everything. One last day..." For a half second, his eyes glistened, but with a blink, they were dry again.

"Wait," I began, narrowing my eyes at him. "What do you mean 'last day'?"

Luc quickly averted his eyes.

A chill moved over my skin. That was not a good sign.

"Luc?"

Slowly, reluctantly, his gaze found mine again. "Someone has to figure what's going on," he said. "And I can't do it from in here."

"You're... Are you just leaving me here? Alone?"

"For now. It's what's best for you, Rachel."

"You don't get to decide that!" I shouted back. Angry tears welled in my eyes, obscuring my vision.

"It's already been decided," he said, stepping back from me.

The hot, furious tears spilled down my cheeks. "If you leave now, don't come back," I snapped, the weight of my threat undone by the cracking of my voice. "If you leave me here, I don't want to see you ever again!"

For a moment, Luc's face tensed—his jaw straining, his brow mashing tight together. Then, just as quickly, his expression smoothed and the light in his eyes went out, the emeralds clouding over.

"If that's the price I have to pay to keep you safe," he said quietly. "Then I'll gladly pay it."

"What?" I gasped. "No!" I reached for his shirt again, but my hand closed on nothing.

Luc was gone and gone for good.

So. It happened.
What do you think Luc knows?
Do you have any theories about why Rachel's in danger?
🔮

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As usual, I'll be posting the next chapter on Patreon next week (find the link on my profile!) and then on Wattpad the week after that!