BLAZE POV
I caught up to her at the exact moment everything went to hell.
The world she was in—her world—was wrong in the way only illusions are. Too clean. Too soft around the edges. Like a dream that didn't know how to age properly. The sky was a muted blue that didn't shift, the buildings frozen in a polite stillness, like cardboard cutouts pretending to be real.
And there—standing just a few feet from her—was him.
Wearing Clark's face.
My blood went ice-cold.
"Clare!" I shouted.
Both of them turned.
The thing wearing Clark's skin looked at me first, and gods—if hatred could rot the air, it would've collapsed right there. Its eyes weren't Clark's. They were too deep, too knowing, layered with centuries of hunger and malice. That was the banshee. No doubt about it.
Clare turned next.
And the look on her face nearly destroyed me.
Pure shock. Wide eyes. Horror. Like she'd just seen the dead crawl out of the grave.
"C-Clark?" she whispered, voice breaking.
