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  "Byron, I-"

  "Shhh, let me taste your fear. There is it. Master would have liked you so much but I can't let him have you. Not until I know you're the only one left."

  Only one left? I felt another warm sensation behind my back as if something was trying to make its way to my spine. Slithering a tail like organ or coiling like a snake maybe? Oh hell no. I should have been afraid but the only thing I felt was raw anger.

  "You're pushing against my hold, 5132. Your body is fighting for control. Fascinating." He almost sounded proud of my achievement. Creep. "Even weaker, you're stronger than them. Those vultures that you walk with. Sandy, was it? Your nurse? Did she ever tell you who you are? The truth?"

  "I'm 5132. A bitch who will bite your hands off if you don't move right about now." Shit, Lana, shit. What have you done?

  With a hollering laugh, he moved but not before inhaling my neck once again. "You think you can play games with me? Hmm? Descendant of Deshayes. Such a pity that you are never getting out."

  He was just spurting bullshit like every other time.

  That's it.

  But why did my body felt familiar with the word, Deshayes?

  Since the day I came here, I've seen some pretty weird things. I've seen ghosts, ear-splitting screaming women, deadly witches but this? This was starting to fuck with my mind, made me question things I shouldn't. Like what I just saw with my own eyes. Those shiny teeth...

  "What do you want with me, Byron?" I asked at last. All the other questions could be answered later. I'll just have to bribe Sandy with my blood again. "Why am I here?"

  He tasked. "Haven't you figure that out yet? Master wants you. The Volkios want you, I want you. You're a walking prize at this point."

  Fuck me.

  THREE YEARS AGO

  Even if Sandy believed that I'll be back in my cell after the drug left my system it wasn't until another week that I was back in my old room with just one dusty window. I could hardly see anything through it but at least it informed me if it was day or nighttime.

  "I told you not to pick fights with Byron. He is dangerous than he looks like." Sandy gritted out, her white hair whipping around and her hands working to wrap my fingers with a gauge. I got that infection after all.

  "What about you?" I tried not to raise my voice. The things he told me the other day... "You haven't been truthful to me either. Even two months ago I had only one family member. My mom Roth. And now I'm hearing about things that don't make any sense. You don't tell me what you do with all the blood you take from me. I'm asking you questions after questions about my bloodline but all you say is to look through me. What the fuck does that even mean?"

  One particular move of her twisting made me cruse, shit, I've made her angry. "Shh! Byron hears everything! You don't want his master knowing about that. Something tells me Byron hasn't told him about your bloodline or whatever he found out yet."

  "Then tell me."

  She still looked stubborn but after a minute, she slammed the bottle of medicine on the floor. It rolled a good few feet away along with my patience. "Fine! Deshayes, they were originally from old NOLA. They had few branches here and there in France and other areas but its Nola where the practicing witches could be found."

  "Witches?" A snicker left from my lips. "I am sorry. I think either the drug is still working or you are just as nuts as they are. I'm a living breathing pain in the ass human. Even Byron said so."

  She smacked my head gently. "I know that. I checked some things with the lab. You have witch blood dated back to few centuries, surprisingly matched with a Deshayes. Asked a few things around. Turned out your sister sucked the magic out of you when you two shared wombs. My guess? When your family found you mundane, they put you up for adoption. Some families are like that, they want to keep the bloodline pure."

  I flinched, not letting myself believe her. How could I!? Mom was all I had and now little miss Sandy here was telling me that I might be wrong? Of course, I was not going to believe it. She was lying to me just like the jackass Byron was.

  "Your aura shifted, child." Sandy suddenly retorted, startling me. "You don't trust me."

  "I don't." There was no point in lying. "Not until you start to tell me the truth."

  "I'm telling you the truth! You even that mark on your neck telling me so." My hands immediately lifted to feel the mark she was talking about. It wasn't even a birthmark, it was a wound I got when I was a kid.

  My tone shifted, alright. "That's not a 'mark'. I was playing in the rain, slipped in the mud, got a concussion, and the next day it appeared. You know something normal that happens when you are being extra reckless? Yeah, that. Whatever theory you have, it's not true."

  I could feel her watching me with disappointment. "Those marks are given so witches can't practice magic. You don't understand, I get it. But denying what you see for yourself is foolish. Just like you believed your boyfriend Zachery wouldn't drive you mad but here we are."

  Sometimes she could be a raging bitch and I could curse at her while nursing my poor heart. But there was one thing that made that coping mechanism pointless right now. Like her knowing things I never told her about.

  "I never said anything about a Zachery." I pointed out, now just realizing that my hands were still at the mercy of her own. "I didn't even say who he was to me."

  Right at that moment, I heard a distant crack only to look down to see my pinky bending the wrong way. No. She just didn't-The pain didn't come until I heard another crack, now the object being my thumb.

  "Crappp! What's wrong with you?" I choked out, scooting away from her. Shit, my poor fingers were starting to look blue and I might just puke all my dinner if this agony didn't stop. Cursing, I looked up to deliver some more colorful words when she smiled, the curve of her lips looking eerily familiar with someone else.

  "I was starting to believe I'll never get to touch you again with all these protection spells around you but I underestimated myself."

  God no.

  This couldn't be real.

  "I can even read your mind right now." Sandy, no-the woman who looked like Sandy but talked like Zach retorted. "So much love in your heart for him yet you didn't hesitate to kill him. Damned him to live like this."

  "Zach." My whisper went unnoticed.

  "I'm talking here! Why try to bring him back, why betray him-"

  "Because I love him!" He was here, he was finally here and he didn't believe me. "I love you. You are him. You are Zach, my Zach."

  It didn't matter that he didn't look like himself but he was here. Breathing, talking. My heart shattered before hearing the news of his death but nothing could prepare me for this. To look at him in the eyes and quiver in fear and relief. And, I could live like this, I deduced at last. I could almost ignore his determination to prove that I killed him even.

  But he's talking too fast, advancing toward me in an alarming phase. "Your Zach is no longer here. It's only me and the memories of your betrayal. Only your suffering can lessen it."

  "What are you-" I paused, blinking hard to make sure it was all real. How did I end up here? "Zach, what's happening?"

  The door to the room was open and there wasn't anyone outside. How was this possible? There was at least one person always guarding my door. Sometimes even Sandy had to bribe them to enter my room.

  "Why is no one here?" I asked, looking back at him.

  He shrugged, his gaze shot to mine in amusement. "I don't know but I think you know what to do about that."

  Run.

  All we had to do was run. So, I did.

  Without waiting for him to follow me, I ran between the long hallways, surprised to find not a single person roaming. This was a ghost town at night but at least a few staff would always be awake. What the fuck was I walking into?

  "It's a hard process." I heard a whisper and instantly froze. I didn't look back to see if Zach were behind me but this was definitely not his voice or Sandy's. I was proved right when I heard another w
hisper.

  "I don't care, just bring him back." No. My mouth opened and closed but nothing came out. The shock had rendered me speechless without any remorse. I didn't even realize walking slowly to witness the scene before I was standing there, only hidden by a vending machine.

  "You don't know the kind of magic you're messing with. He's not a regular spirit, something is different about him, something...missing. I can't tell you he'll be back unless he wants to be back." Fredah's stern voice made me flinch just like the figure beside her did. I never realized how crazy I must have looked to them until I was witnessing my own desperation like this.

  "I'm willing to do whatever it takes." The past me shouted in anger but she couldn't sound any more pathetic. "Master put a stop to any magic. It's me who can bring it back to this place."

  Sigyn sighed, the only one of the three who's tolerable. "Sisters, what do you say? Should we take the human's offer?"

  I waited with the past me and it still made my heart race when Era nodded, sealing a poor girl's fate with that. "In the name of Volkios, I say yes."

  "You were so tensed that day." Startled, I found Zach in Sandy's body beside me, watching my every movement with a roll of her tongue. "I almost thought you'd give up but you didn't. Do you want to watch more?"

  I turned to look only to find nothing. No bargaining witches or a human. What in the name of hell...

  "She's going to die!"

  My feet almost slipped hearing the scream. My scream. Volatile, angry, and more of all, scared. Staggering, I walked past a few rooms to find an empty one. Dust littered the place but I could clearly see three women hovering over a crying mess of a girl and another just near the corner, contempt in her eyes for what's about to happen.

  "Watch." Zach goaded with a smirk. "Watch her choke on her blood."

  And, she truly was.

  Fighting Era's hold while choking but nothing could stop the inevitable incident. Not my wide eyes watching them until Fredah told me they failed. That the devil didn't hear their plea, that I was doing a crime, trying to bring back someone who wasn't even interested to be back.

  That an innocent girl died in vain.

  "Why are you doing this?" I realized that I was panicking. Or truly losing my mind.

  "Why do you think?"

  "Don't touch me!" I sneered, slapping his hands away when he tried to reach out for me. No matter where I looked, there was a memory waiting for me. Be it me shouting at those sisters or me taking away by those people.

  "This isn't real. It can't be real." Focus. I needed to focus on reality rather than whatever this was.

  His jaw clenched like I was being dramatic and that made my hysteria even more prominent. "Let me out, let me out of this!"

  "I'm not stopping you." He laughed. "Run. Run Lana until I find you because if I do..."

  Without thinking, I started running. Past the cells and the staff courter. Running downstairs, I looked sideways to make sure there was no one in the reception and to my luck, there wasn’t. Not only that, even the front door was open. If I was right in my mind maybe I would've stopped to question so many red flags but I was desperate. Desperate to end this nightmare. Besides, I never reached this part of the sanatorium, hell, this was the first time I've come this close to escaping. The one thing that could let me out of this hellhole.

  Taking slow steps outside, I could've cried. How many nights did I wish to see outside only to feel the hope die? My feet gained speed the closer to the gate I was until I slammed myself on it, trying to open it with all I have. To my surprise, one little push was enough to throw me outside.

  And, I should have been laughing as I ran from there. But the moment my feet touched the ground, I was back to that night in my freshman year, watching yet another mistake of mine.

  “Don’t do this, please.” I begged. “Anything but this.”

  “Why? So that you can cry yourself to sleep? Pretend that you had no hands in her death?” I’ve never known Zach to be cruel until that moment. But my eyes were not on his but the drunk girl and her best friend.

  "Hey, watch out!" Samara yelled out at the past me who only giggled. I could remember that night like it happened yesterday. Zach had finally asked me out after six months of pining after him from afar.

  I was happy, beyond happy.

  But I also knew what was coming.

  "Zach, please-"

  I felt a ghost of a breath near my ears. "Just watch."

  "I'm flying, Samara! Come on, join me!" I shouted, laughing at her.

  "Will you stop this for a second? Geez...I should've never given you that drink." Samara mumbled but I heard it anyway. I was drunk.

  But I was drunk in love.

  "Come on, we're going to heaven!" I tugged Samara to the middle of the road where I could see the small lights, waving at me to follow it. No...God, no.

  "You'll kill ourselves! Dammit! Where the hell is Kyle?" Samara kept calling him but I didn't listen. Not even when I heard Samara's scream.

  "Lana, the truck!" She yelled, trying to push us both from the road but I kept her there, waiting for a tragedy I could have prevented.

  "Oh...don't just go! Stay right here, I'm never going to let you go. See, pinky promise." My past self smiled at her friend where I ran to them, wishing just for once that I could change the past. I collided with them with a cry but everything went black.

  Nothing...For a second, there was nothing.

  Then everything.

  “She’s dead!”

  “Lana’s alive!”

  The loud cries, blood everywhere, people yelling, the flashing lights of the ambulance but I was still looking at Samara's blurry figure. Samara hated red.

  And I was the one who gifted her with that color.

  Whipping around, I shoved Zach who was still laughing. “You think this is funny? She was our friend, Zach, our friend! Why would you do this? Why, why, why! Why would you let me watch her die again? You think I don’t feel guilt? Huh? I haven’t been able to sleep without seeing her blood filled face every night, Zach. You knew that. You knew I wanted to be in her place…”

  Before I could slap that smile off of his face, I was back to that cell, watching myself in the bed, chained and unconscious. "No. No, no, no-"

  Instead of Sandy, Byron looked back at me with a smile, that damned cruel smile. "Today I'm Sandy, Byron, tomorrow...Who would I be tomorrow? Maybe your mum? Kyle? Or Samara?"

  "Don't you dare!" It's not happening. None of these was real. It couldn't be.

  But every damn thing was real.

  The slow trail of tears down my cheeks.

  The Zach now in Byron's body.

  And the constant pain.

  "How are you even here?" The question came out of nowhere. Sandy believed the salt would keep him away until I found a way to make him listen. So, how was he here? Trying to get inside my head. And it was working, God, how it was working.

  "You always ask me that. It never gets old." He chuckled, rearing his head back as if he was sharing some kind of an inside joke I missed.

  Gritting my teeth, I tried to help myself, juggling the chains but it didn't budge. In fact, it was starting to bite into the skin by the minute. Goddammit. "What did you do, answer me!"

  Of course, expecting a clear answer from him was futile. He started circling around my bed, pausing frequently to look for something. What could be so...one of his hands dived into the small hole separating my cell from my neighbor’s and he pulled a small thing out of it.

  My diary to be exact.

  "Never fails to amaze me how every time I find this in a place different than before. I think this is the only thing that changes in your dream." My dream? My eyes narrowed at the confession. He was playing some kind of sick games with me. That's it. All I had to know was the rules and I could get out of it.

  "Why are we here?" I asked, deliberately hiding my suspicion. "You couldn't bother to answer when I tried to get you out, so why now? Why this?"

&nb
sp; He laughed, running his fingers through the diary until he found a page worth mocking. "I'm missing time. Waking up in places I shouldn't....haven't you figured that out yet, Lana? Tell me, how old are you now?"

  I blinked, surprised at the change in our conversation. "How old I am?"

  "Yes. Come on, tell me."

  "You think this is funny." Damn him. He wasn't my Zach. Maybe it was some other spirit meant to ruin my sanity? "I'm twenty. Now what? What's that had to do with anything, hmm?"

  "Lana, you're twenty-one."

  What?

  Something trickled through my mouth. Laughter? Cry? God, I didn't know. All I knew that he was messing with me. Messing with my mind. "Get out. Get out of my head."

  "You don't believe me? See for yourself. Go ahead. Look." I did and there was no longer a body there. No chain, no me. See? A nightmare.

  "Fuck you. I refuse to play your game."

  "But you've been playing my games for the whole year." His tone was levelheaded but his eyes narrowed into silts. "Doing whatever I ask of you, forgetting whenever I want you to forget. Wonder what'll happen if I walk there, hmm?"

  By there, he meant the bathroom. Logically there wasn't a door or any privacy so he easily walked inside, dropped my diary in the dirty tub, and laughed. "This is my favorite part. Come on! Join me."

  I stubbornly stood there until he smiled, my heart beating faster to find myself walking closer to him. When I was near him, he gripped my arms, forcing me to look down, and there it was. Another version of me in the tub, unconscious and seemingly holding something in her palm.

  "Is that..." I trailed off, realizing what it was for the first time.

  "Your pills." He nodded, grabbing my chin to make me look at him. "This is how it always ends, Lana. This is how we end."

  I could pretend he was joking. Or playing another one of his games but I was starting to remember. Small details that I failed to recognize at first. Like the missing time. Seeing no other patients than me. Of course, I was losing it.

  "Those pills." I gulped, knowing where I'd find them and true to my suspicion, I found them under the small crack. "It was you who gave me the idea of forgetting, not Byron. Isn't it? Byron is sly but he isn't stupid. I’m trapped inside my mind, forced to live the same day all over again, aren’t I?"