Amanda didn't remember falling asleep. But when she opened her eyes, she wasn't in her bed. She was underground. The air was wet and full of rot. Dirt under her fingernails. Her skin cold. Her teeth chattering, not from fear, but from the hunger.
She tried to move, but the body wasn't hers. Her hands, larger, stronger. Familiar in a way that made her skin crawl. There was someone tied in front of her. A man. He was shaking, crying and begging.
Her body moved forward with no hesitation.
Lucan.
This was Lucan.
Not now, but long ago.
Amanda couldn't stop it. The sounds. The smells. The feeling of a throat tearing under her grip. The rush of blood, not warm, but right.
A voice in her head. Not a whisper this time.
A command.
"This is the price."
Amanda screamed, but not the body.
It fed.
Slow.
Efficient.
Like an executioner, not a monster.
She snapped awake in her room, lungs on fire. Hands shaking. She stared at her palms like they weren't hers. She still saw the blood there, still felt it.
Someone knocked on the door.
Not Lucan.
Not Eric.
Sam.
She opened it, dazed, barely holding herself together. He looked pale and worried. Holding a coat.
"You didn't come in today."
Amanda didn't answer. Couldn't.
Sam looked closer, frowning. "Amanda… are you okay?"
She looked at him. And saw his death. Not a vision. Not a warning. A certainty. It was violent and ugly.
She slammed the door in his face and locked it.
Sam stood outside for a long time, coat still in his hands.
Then walked away.
-----
The man's name was Kyle. He worked at the auto shop just off Highway 4. He kept to himself, he barely spoke, just showed up and fixed what needed fixing, kept his head down.
Lucan had seen him twice, once when passing through town, once when Kyle offered to patch a tire on Amanda's truck for free. Nothing about him mattered. And that was exactly why Maryann chose him.
Lucan felt it before he heard it. The buzz in the air. The shift in gravity around a life being unmade. He was on his way back to Amanda's when the scream hit the night like a shotgun blast.
It wasn't pain.
It was delight.
Lucan changed direction instantly, shoes hitting the road hard.
The garage was lit up when he arrived. Floodlights humming. Radio blasting a gospel station through blown-out speakers. Kyle stood in the middle of the bay. Shirtless and covered in symbols drawn in oil and blood.
His own.
Around him was three bodies. Two men. One woman. None moving.
Lucan stepped into the garage. Kyle turned slowly, eyes wild, jaw slack, smile too wide.
"She says you're watching," he said. "She says you think you're the end of things."
Lucan didn't reply.
Kyle walked closer.
"She wanted me to say hello."
Lucan looked down. One of the bodies was still twitching.
He moved fast.
A blur.
One second Kyle was walking. The next, Lucan had him by the throat, slammed against the concrete wall.
No glamour. No cruelty.
Just intention.
Kyle gasped. Coughed blood.
"She said you'd kill me."
Lucan's voice was low. Final.
"She was right."
He didn't make it slow. Maryann would've wanted a show, so he denied her one.
One sharp twist his spine broke and he dropped to the floor.
Lucan stood over him. No rage. No satisfaction. Just strategy.
He crouched beside the body and whispered one sentence into Kyle's ear. Quiet, sharp.
A message for Maryann.
No magic. Just old words in a dead tongue.
Then he vanished.
Back in the woods, Maryann opened her eyes.
And smiled.
-----
Amanda sat on the floor, her back against the bedroom wall, lights off, shades drawn. The air in the room felt thick, like something invisible had been sitting there before she came in, and hadn't really left. She hadn't eaten. She couldn't feel hunger anymore. Only weight.
Memories that weren't hers. Blood she hadn't spilled. A kill she hadn't asked to witness. And underneath it all.
Lucan.
That name echoed louder than the others now.
Not whispered.
Spoken.
She felt him before he knocked. A change in pressure. The kind that made the hairs on her arms rise and her thoughts go quiet. She didn't move to open the door. She didn't have to.
Lucan stepped in, closing the door behind him without a word.
His shirt was damp with blood. Not his.
Amanda looked up at him. He looked different. Not angrier. Not colder.
Just... settled. Like he'd made a choice.
"You killed someone," she said.
Lucan didn't deny it.
"He was already gone," he replied. "She was wearing him like a second skin."
Amanda pushed herself to her feet, slow, unsteady. "You came here, why?"
Lucan met her eyes.
"You're in it now."
She blinked. "I've been in it."
"No," he said, stepping closer. "You've been reacting. Now you participate."
Amanda's breath caught. "As what?"
Lucan reached out, gently, and touched two fingers to her temple. The chill that ran through her body was immediate.
Not pain.
Not power.
Recognition.
Like a lock being matched to its key.
"You're not a weapon," he said. "You're the tether. The lure."
Amanda pulled back, eyes wide. "You want to use me."
Lucan didn't flinch.
"I want to win."
She shook her head. "You don't care what happens to me."
Lucan didn't answer. But that silence? It wasn't denial. And that cut deeper than anything else.
He turned to leave, but stopped in the doorway.
"She'll come for you soon," he said.
Amanda's voice cracked. "And you?"
Lucan looked over his shoulder.
"I'll be waiting."