I stepped into the center of the circle. The wooden floor creaked under me. My breath fogged the inside of my mask. Ezekiel handed me the book.
“You’re ready now,” he said.
“For what?” I asked, my voice dry.
“To wear the mask not as a stranger… but as the Chosen.”
My hands shook as I opened the black book.
Inside werenames.
Some I recognized.
Some werecrossed out.
And at the bottom of the list:
Lenore.
Mother.
Me.
I was chosen. I knew that now. Chosen to take souls for them, so they could feed on the innocent. So they could keep living.
What they didn’t understand was that the house fed with them too.
Every person who died inside these walls remained trapped. Their spirits couldn’t leave. And the house kept them, bound them, turned them into echoes that clawed at the living. That’s why Lenore and I were haunted. Not just by ghosts, but by the weight of every soul swallowed by this place.
We could never escape them.
We couldn’t even leave.
No matter how far we ran or how deep we tried to bury the truth, we always ended up here. Back in the same halls. Back at Gloomsbury Manor.
Always.
SIXTEEN
LENORE
18 YEARS OLD (FINALLY)
Massachusetts in July sweats through your skin. Mornings bright and blinding, afternoons a thunderstorm waiting to happen. That day was hot like hell, but the sky stayed gray, like even the sun couldn’t bear to look.
It was July 22nd, my eighteenth birthday.
I sat curled in the corner of my bedroom, dragging a fingernail into the peeling green wallpaper beside my closet, scratching another tally into the wall, marking time like I was serving a sentence. All I wanted was to disappear. To never seeanyof them again.
I wore an oversized black shirt, its edge brushing my knees. My hair was tied in a loose bun, dark and messy. My cheeks weresticky with tears. My skin, was still raw, still feeling the strokes from the Father’s belt.
The door creaked open. Then shut. I didn’t look up. I didn’t need to.
It washim.
Dorian.
“Hey, Trouble,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Loving the makeup.”
