The fire never came back on.
Even when Zane tried lighting it with dry pine, matches, lighter fluid—it just hissed, smoked, then died.
The fireplace was cold now.
Like the Hollow was watching through it.
---
I sat by the dark hearth with Harper beside me.
She was the only one who didn't seem afraid of what I'd become.
The others?
They watched me like I was contagious.
Like the spiral on my arm might crawl down the floorboards and slither into their skin next.
Maybe it would.
---
Tyrell paced the far wall. Still trembling. Still half-mute.
Zane clutched his camera tighter than ever—his lifeline, his wall.
Jules hadn't spoken since I'd woken up.
And Lena?
Lena had disappeared upstairs an hour ago and hadn't come back down.
---
> "One of us has to go," I said aloud.
"The Hollow won't wait."
Zane scoffed, bitter.
> "So now you're her prophet?"
> "You gonna crown someone and throw them in the woods?"
Harper glared at him.
> "She didn't ask for this."
> "None of us did."
---
> "Yeah?" Zane snapped. "Well maybe she should've refused."
> "Maybe she should've—"
> "—What?" I cut him off.
"Let the Hollow take someone else instead?"
> "Let Riley die again?"
---
He didn't have a response to that.
Just the shaky whir of his camera motor spooling up again.
He was filming all of it now.
Even the silence.
Especially the silence.
---
Then Jules spoke.
So quietly I almost missed it.
> "I'll go."
Everyone turned to her.
> "You shouldn't," Harper said gently.
Jules didn't look at any of us.
Her eyes were locked on the floor, where her feet had been tracing tiny spirals in the dust.
> "He trusted me," she whispered.
"That night. Before the game."
> "He told me something. Something I never told anyone."
---
My stomach dropped.
I leaned forward.
> "What did he say?"
She lifted her eyes.
Tears shined in them.
> "That it was his turn."
> "That she'd chosen him years ago."
---
The room froze.
Even the wind outside seemed to pause.
---
> "He said he used to dream of the Hollow."
> "That the tree whispered his name."
> "That he remembered things that didn't belong to him."
> "And that one day, she'd take it all back."
> "Unless someone stopped her."
---
> "But none of us believed him."
> "Not me."
> "Not Lena."
> "Not even you, Ava."
---
She stood slowly.
Took a spiral from her pocket.
Not hers.
Riley's.
Charred on one side. Ash-streaked. Faintly pulsing with a heat I could feel even from here.
> "He dropped it that night," Jules said.
> "I picked it up."
> "I've had it ever since."
---
She placed it in my hand.
And the moment our skin touched—
---
FLASH.
The Hollow.
Lit by moonlight.
Riley on his knees.
The tree groaning open.
Something crawling from the roots—
And Jules, behind me.
Watching.
Then turning away.
---
I came back gasping.
My throat burned.
---
> "You saw her," I whispered.
> "You left him there."
Jules didn't flinch.
Didn't cry.
She just nodded.
---
> "That's why I'll go," she said.
"Because I should've been taken instead."
---
Suddenly, a scream tore through the lodge.
From upstairs.
Lena.
We raced to her room.
The door was open.
The walls were covered—floor to ceiling—in spirals drawn in blood.
On the floor: Lena.
Clutching her arm, sobbing.
The spiral in her wrist had split her skin wide open—like bark cracking under pressure.
---
Harper pushed Jules back.
Tended to Lena's arm.
I stared at the walls.
The spirals weren't just shapes now.
They were names.
Ours.
Over and over.
Until the last one began to twist.
Letters warping.
Changing.
Until it became:
> "Elarah."
---
Harper whispered, terrified:
> "She's coming."
---
The room groaned—wood bending, beams creaking.
The floor under Jules began to ripple.
She didn't run.
Didn't scream.
She looked at me and said:
> "Tell her I remember."
Then the floor split open—
A spiral-shaped mouth gnashing through the wood—
And pulled her down.
Gone.
---
Just like that.
She was gone.
The wood resealed behind her, smooth and clean.
Like she'd never existed.
---
Zane dropped his camera.
Tyrell began sobbing.
Lena passed out cold.
---
I stared at the spot where Jules vanished.
The spiral still hot in my palm.
And I understood now.
It was never about choosing someone.
The Hollow always knew.
It was just waiting for us to realize who'd already been claimed.