"Love and fear are twin flames. One lights the way; the other burns it down."
________________________________________
Amara's POV
I woke to frost on the windowsill.
It curled in delicate, skeletal patterns, glinting in the pale morning light. Aiden's side of the bed was empty, but the sheets were stiff with cold, and the air tasted metallic, like winter and static. I traced the icy filigree with a trembling finger, my breath fogging in the chill. He was here. He's always here, even when he's gone.
The proposal letter lay on my nightstand, its edges singed as if held too close to a flame. I hadn't opened it. Couldn't. Not yet. The weight of it felt like a ghost limb, aching and phantom.
I pulled on Aiden's sweatshirt the one he'd left behind months ago, now smelling of frost instead of cologne and stumbled into the kitchen. The faucet dripped. Plink. Plink. Plink. A metronome for my unraveling sanity.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:
Meet me. Noon. The old church on 5th.
Eleanor. The medium.
I didn't reply. But I pulled on my boots anyway.
The church was abandoned, its stone walls choked with ivy, the stained-glass windows long shattered. Eleanor stood at the altar, her back to me, a lit cigarette dangling from her fingers. She didn't turn as I approached.
"You're playing with fire," she said, blowing smoke into a shaft of sunlight.
"I don't have a choice."
She laughed, sharp and mirthless. "Everyone has a choice, darling. You're just too in love to make the right one."
I clenched my fists. "Tell me how to help him."
Finally, she faced me. Her eyes were black, pupil-less, like twin voids. "He's not a stray puppy. He's a ghost. And not the friendly kind anymore."
"He's still Aiden."
"Is he?" She flicked ash onto the floor. "You've seen the signs. The cold. The shadows. The way he looks at you like he wants to devour you whole." Her voice dropped. "He's not here for love, Amara. He's here because you won't let go."
I stepped back, my throat tight. "That's not true."
"Isn't it?" She closed the distance between us, her breath sour with nicotine. "Every tear you shed, every midnight you waste waiting for him it's food for him. Fuel. And the hungrier he gets, the less of him remains."
The words slithered under my skin. Hungry. Fuel. Devour.
"What happens if he stays?" I whispered.
Eleanor smiled, all teeth. "He becomes something even God can't forgive."
________________________________________
Aiden's POV
The dark is different now.
It's alive. It breathes.
I float in the void between midnight and morning, my thoughts fraying like old rope. Her name. Her face. The scar on her knee. The way she laughs no, not laughs, sings. Wait. Did she ever sing?
Memories slip through my fingers. I claw at them, desperate.
She hummed in the shower. Off-key. Terrible. Perfect.
Her favorite song was what was it? Something about storms. Something about staying.
A crack splits the air. The void shudders, and it appears the shadow. The thing with too many teeth and no eyes.
"You're fading," it hisses, its voice a chorus of screams. "Let me in. I'll make you strong. I'll make you real."
I recoil. "I don't want your strength."
"Liar." It coils around me, oily and cold. "You want her. I can give you more time. More nights. More… flesh"
The offer is a hook in my ribs. More nights. More of her warmth, her taste, her whispered pleas.
"What's the price?" I ask, already knowing.
The shadow laughs. "Her soul."
________________________________________
Amara's POV
I found him at dusk, sitting on the edge of our bed.
Our bed. The delusion stung.
He was translucent, the veins in his wrists blackened, creeping up his arms like poison. His head snapped up as I entered, his eyes flashing a feral, electric blue.
"You went to her," he said, voice low.
"Eleanor knows things. Important things."
He stood, the room temperature plummeting. Frost spiderwebbed across the mirror. "She's a vulture. She feeds on grief."
"And what do you feed on, Aiden?"
The question hung between us, razor-sharp.
He flinched. "You know what I am."
"I know what you're becoming." I stepped closer, my breath crystallizing in the air. "Eleanor says I'm killing you. That my grief is twisting you into something… else."
He laughed, bitter. "You think I don't know that? I can feel it, Amara. The hunger. The anger. Every time I touch you, it's like" He gripped his hair, snarling. "Like I'm carving pieces out of myself to stay human."
"Then let me help you!"
"You can't!" The lamp on the nightstand exploded, glass shards raining down. "Don't you get it? I'm trapped. And the only way out is.."
"No." I grabbed his face, forcing him to look at me. "There has to be another way. The letter the proposal. Maybe if we"
He kissed me.
It wasn't gentle. It was a collision, a battle, his teeth cutting my lip, my nails drawing blood from his shoulders. We fell onto the bed, a tangle of desperation and rage, the world narrowing to skin and cold and the metallic tang of fear.
"I'm sorry," he whispered against my throat. "I'm so fucking sorry."
________________________________________
Aiden's POV
She tastes like salt and rust. Like regret.
I shouldn't be doing this. But I'm weak. I'm hungry.
Her hands claw at my back, her legs locking around my hips. "Stay," she begs. "Please."
The shadow's offer echoes in my skull. Her soul. Her soul. Her soul.
I bury my face in her neck, biting down to muffle a scream. She arches into me, mistaking pain for passion.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
________________________________________
Amara's POV
After, we lie in silence.
His fingers trace my spine, leaving trails of ice. "I found the shadow," he says quietly.
I stiffen. "What shadow?"
"The one that's been following me. It offered me a deal. More time… in exchange for you."
The air leaves my lungs. "What did you say?"
He turns to me, his eyes hollow. "I said no."
Liar.
But I kiss him anyway.
________________________________________
Aiden's POV
She sleeps.
I watch her, memorizing the curve of her lashes, the rhythm of her breath.
The shadow waits in the corner.
"Last chance," it whispers.
I close my eyes.
Her soul. Her soul. Her soul.
"Yes."
"In the end, we are all just stories. Some are written in ink, others in shadow. But the best ones are etched in the space between a heartbeat and a whisper."