Page 33 of Wraith

Twenty-Three

Laughter filled the room,sharp and unhinged, echoing off the walls like the cackling of something utterly untethered.

The sound sliced through the fog in my mind, pulling me out of the strange, weightless haze that had enveloped me. My vision sharpened slowly, and the first thing I saw was Emma. She was kneeling by my body—my body—her hands pressed to my chest as she sobbed uncontrollably.

“Lucian! Lucian, please! Oh my God, no!”

I tried to move, to speak, but nothing happened. My body didn’t respond, as though it was no longer mine. That was when I saw it. Me. I was sprawled on the floor, my head tilted at an unnatural angle, blood pooling beneath me like a dark halo. Emma’s tears smeared streaks of red across her hands as she fumbled for her phone, her fingers trembling too much to unlock it.

“What the fuck?” I whispered, my voice hollow and shaky. The sight didn’t make sense, couldn’t make sense. “That… that’s not me.”

“It’s you, darling,” a voice purred, rich with amusement. The laughter subsided into a low, gleeful chuckle. Slowly, I turned toward its source, and my heart stuttered.

There she was, standing at the edge of the room. My breath caught, my stomach twisting.Lily.She was standing there, clear as day, her expression one of almost childlike delight as laughter continued to ripple from her. Her dark dress shimmered faintly in the dim light, her hair falling in soft waves around her face, just as I remembered.

“Lily?” The name came out as a hoarse whisper, my voice cracking. It was impossible. She was dead. But there she was.

Her eyes flicked to mine, the gleam in them brighter now, almost feverish. For a fleeting moment, I let myself believe it was really her—the girl we’d lost, the one I’d never stopped feeling guilty for. The Lily I’d loved in my own quiet way. But as I stared, the illusion began to fracture. There was something wrong, something jagged and cruel about her smile.

But that wasn't the only issue. I was dead. Gone. My life, my plans,everything… wiped out in one violent instant. But even through that storm, I couldn’t tear my eyes from her, trying to reconcile the Lily I knew with what I was seeing now.

Before I could fully process it, another voice ripped through the air, raw and trembling with rage.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

I turned just as Ciaran stormed toward her, his face contorted in fury. His eyes blazed, not just with anger, but with something deeper, something so twisted and raw it made my chest tighten.

“This is what you wanted? You’ve dragged me into your mess for months, but this...” He gestured wildly toward my body, then toward Emma, who was now screaming into her phone, begging for an ambulance. “This is too far, Lilith! Too fucking far!”

The name hit me like a slap. My heart lurched as the truth unraveled before me. She wasn’t Lily. Not anymore. The girl we’d loved, the girl we’d mourned—she was gone. What stood before us now was something else entirely, something dark and cruel, her laughter cutting through the air like a weapon.

Lilith blinked at him, her expression a masterful combination of mock innocence and boredom. “Too far? Oh, spare me, Ciaran. You’ve been dead longer than he has. Shouldn’t you be used to it by now?”

His hands clenched into fists, trembling at his sides. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this! None of it! You—” His voice cracked, and suddenly, all the rage drained out of him, leaving something raw and broken in its place. “You ruined everything,” he whispered, his voice barely audible now. “Everything I cared about, everything Iwas… you ruined it all.”

For a moment, it was quiet—but it wasn’t peace. It was the silence of a storm poised to rip itself apart. Ciaran’s gaze lingered on her, and something in his eyes shifted, like a fractured pane of glass catching the light. Beneath the fury, beneath the despair, there was an aching tenderness. He hated her. Heneededher. And she had destroyed him.

And then he broke. Sobs racked his body as he crumpled to the ground, his hands burying his face as he cried openly. It wasn’t a quiet kind of grief. It was ugly and unrestrained, the kind of sobbing that came from someone who’d lost everything—even the hope of hating her properly.

For a moment, I couldn’t do anything but stare. Lilith, however, was anything but frozen. Her laughter bubbled up again, louder, sharper, more unhinged. She threw her head back, her entire form flickering faintly as she howled with glee.

“Oh, my dear Ciaran,” she wheezed between gasps of laughter. “You are adelight! Ruined everything? Oh, sweetheart, you overestimate how much I cared about your precious littlelife. You think this is aboutyou? It’s always been bigger than you. Bigger than him.” She gestured toward my body on the floor, her laughter rising again. “But watching you both fall apart is the cherry on top. Truly.”

I’d never felt hatred like the kind that boiled in me now. It wasn’t just for her—it was for myself. For being blind. For letting things spiral to this point. For not seeing how deeply this darkness had woven itself into all of our lives.

“Stop.” My voice was quiet, but it cut through the chaos like a blade. Lilith turned toward me, her laughter trailing off, though the smirk remained firmly in place.

“Stop?” she echoed, tilting her head. “Oh, Lucian, darling. We’re just getting started.”

Ciaran’s sobs slowed, his red-rimmed eyes lifting to meet mine. There was something there—something I hadn’t seen in him since before Lily… before everything.

Regret.

“I tried to stop her,” he rasped, his voice raw. “I tried, but...” He trailed off, shaking his head. “She always wins. You can’t fight her.”

“Can’t fight me?” Lilith purred, taking a step forward. Her form flickered, growing darker, more substantial. The temperature in the room plummeted. “Oh, darling, you couldn’t fight me if you wanted to. And now?” Her gaze shifted back to me, predatory and gleeful. “Now, you’re mine.”

Emma’s frantic cries echoed faintly behind us, her desperation filling the space where my heartbeat used to be. I turned to look at her, at the tears streaming down her face, at the way she clung to the phone like it could somehow fix this.

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