Page 111 of She Haunts Me Still

Act IV

Pyre

These violent delights have violent ends,

And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,

Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey

Is loathsome in his own deliciousness

And in the taste confounds the appetite.

Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so.

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

—William Shakespeare,Romeo andJuliet

31

Theater is drenched in superstition. Don’t sayMacbethwhen you’re in a performance space. Avoid wearing blue onstage. Never tell an actorGood luck.

And always keep the ghost light on when you leave.

That final one brings a smile to Mallory’s face, because it makes her think of Saskia. She clings to it as she turns off the faucet and tries not to dwell on how she might’ve just taken the last shower of her life. How tonight could be the last time she walks across campus. The last time she sees her friends.

The last time she sees the girl she’s just beginning to love.

Opening night is in five hours. They have no solutions, and they’re out of time.

Mallory peers into the steamed mirror at her pale skin, soaked bangs clinging to her forehead. The fang marks in her throat glow a garish purple in the fluorescent lights, and her eyes are clouded and dark. She wraps her towel tighter around herself and sinks to the floor, so she doesn’t have to see her reflection anymore.

She looks like someone who won’t be alive much longer.

After they exited the hedge maze last night, Saskia made Mallory promise to leave campus immediately following theirfinal bows. Her scheme was flimsy and rushed, patched together in a fit of panic.I have some money from my mom’s will,Saskia said as they hurried to her dorm.We can find an apartment. We’ll get jobs. Fuck this school. Fuckeverything. We’ll keep each other safe.

And Mallory had agreed, because it was easier than admitting that they wouldn’t be safe anywhere.

Easier than telling Saskia she won’t be leaving campus with her at all.

Because after final bows, Mallory is going to the chapel.

She doesn’t have a choice. Not when she knows the only other path leads to Saskia dying in her place.

Mallory had craved answers, but there aren’t any more to be found. There’s nothing left. No clues, no breadcrumbs, no secrets to tell. Just this terrible dread in her belly and an emerging truth that no matter what, they all lose. Her. Ezra. Saskia.

So, she’ll enter the chapel, right when she’s due. She’ll go straight to the altar, where the candles will be burning just for her. But there won’t be any last kisses, no whispered, grief-laced goodbyes.

Because once she’s there, Mallory Webb will attempt to destroy the demon that’s already laid claim on her heart. A task that, she knows, will very likely lead to her death.

She’ll do it afraid.

But this time, she’ll do it alone.

Mallory didn’t mean to fall asleep on the tiled bathroom floor in a towel, but exhaustion tugs at her subconscious like an anchor, pulling her into a dream.

A new dream, this time.