Page 105 of Haunt Me, Maybe

And Gideon—Gideon buckled for the first time. The voids in his eyes widened, not with fear, but with something worse: uncertainty. His mask cracked, revealing the man beneath.

I met Aven’s eyes across the circle, her gaze fierce and unbroken amid the storm, and in that moment, with our world teetering on the edge of oblivion, I felt alive. We weren’t done yet, but we’d wounded the beast. And together, we’d end it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Wes

I had no time to savor the small, savage victory of the crystal in my hand, only the raw, immediate need to end this. I tossed the crystal to Aven.

She caught it one-handed, fingers closing around the red stone like she was strangling the last breath from a nightmare. There was no hesitation on her part, no second thoughts. With a lifetime of rage distilled into one motion, she hurled it to the floor and brought her boot down.

The crystal fractured with a bellow of lightning stuck in a bottle. Red light erupted from the cracks, flooding the mill in arterial crimson and blinding white. For one suspended second, the world was nothing but color and fury and the promise of unraveling.

Then reality tore.

The air folded inward at the center of the room, warping like a heat haze over scorched asphalt—except this was no heat. This was gravity stripped of mercy; a hungry mouth opening in the fabric of the world. A vortex yawned between Gideon and the circle like a wound in existence itself.

Floorboards groaned as nails ripped free. Broken rafters shuddered overhead. Dust, chalk, splinters, jagged shards of red crystal—everything not rooted deep enough lifted and spiraled toward the tear where it was sucked into oblivion.

The mill whined and its beams locked tighter, shifting its foundation as the river beneath it surged in furious answer.

“Can you stop it?” I asked the mill in the only way I could; a silent plea pressed into the aether.

Can hold. Not close.

The vortex widened, and the suction slammed into me, reaching me even in my semi-permanent state. Without the crystal, Gideon’s form destabilized—magic bleeding out of him in arcs of black tendrils that frayed at the edges. But he wasn’t gone.

Not yet. He dug his heels in, claws of that darkness lashing outward to hook into walls, into air, into the very bones of the building.

He would tear the town apart before he let himself be swallowed. I felt it, the desperation beneath the fury, the unraveling king that refused to fall. Aven stood blazing at the heart of her circle, protected for as long as her magic lasted. Her hair whipped wild in the gale, strands lashing her face.

Our eyes met.

Amid the howling chaos, the screaming wind, the collapsing world—her gaze locked on me. The mill tightened around the vortex, its foundation dropping inch by agonizing inch as though it was trying to swallow the wound whole.

But it couldn’t do it alone. It needed weight. It needed mass, something to shove the devourer back into itself.

It needed a body. I knew what I had to do. It looked like I was about to keep my promise to the mill after all, an end to its loneliness. I looked at Aven, and for one suspended, unbearable moment, everything slowed.

Dust hung motionless in the air. The roar dimmed to a distant hum. It was just her. Her eyes wide with dawning horror. Her mouth shaping my name, soundless against the wind.

“No,” she breathed.

I stepped toward her—against the pull, against the tearing force that wanted to rip me apart. One determined step. Then another.

“I love you,” I said.

The words were quiet, but they were all I had left. Her head shook violently, tears streaking through the dust on her cheeks.

“No! Wes—we can figure something else out!”

There wasn’t time. Gideon was clawing toward the circle now, black magic whipping like shattered chains. Reaching for her, trying to drag her down with him into whatever waited on the other side. The mill groaned again.

It strained to its breaking point. It could hold the vortex, but not forever. I looked at the wound that was trying to eat the room. Then back at her.

I gathered every ounce of what I was—all the cold that kept me tethered, all the rage that kept me from fading, all the years of unfinished death that still burned the hollow of where my heart used to be.

All the love that was slowly replacing it. I let it build…and then I detonated, ready to sacrifice everything I’d ever been and everything I’d never get to be.