Smoke was for pretending.
This was for forgetting.
Kit didn't remember getting up after the journal entry. Didn't remember locking the door or how the hollowed-out book ended up in his lap like it had summoned itself. His fingers were already trembling before he even found what he was looking for, as if his body had known before his mind caught up.
Now he was on the floor, legs folded beneath him like an offering to something ancient and unkind. The room pressed in around him, air heavy and unmoving. Outside the windows, the sky hung starless—too dark to name.
The house was quiet, the kind of silence that made the walls feel farther apart. His ears rang faintly, like the aftermath of a scream only he had heard.
He'd turned off his phone. Shoved it under the mattress like it might bite him if it lit up again.
He couldn't bear the glow of her name.
Not tonight. Not like this.
A vial.
A rolled-up sleeve.
No hesitation.
The burn came slower than the party stuff. Less euphoria, more gravity. A deep, dragging tide that pulled him inward, drowning his nerves one by one. It softened the world's edges until even the ache felt far away.
His limbs went slack. His jaw unclenched. His thoughts blurred, smeared at the corners like wet ink.
It felt like being poured into warm concrete. Like sinking into something that didn't want to let go.
He let his head fall back against the bedframe, blinking slowly. The ceiling fractured into prisms he couldn't quite name. His chest rose and fell in shallow waves, not quite breathing—just existing.
The knot in his stomach loosened. Just enough. Just barely.
He didn't feel better.
He just didn't feel.
And maybe—for tonight—that was enough.
.
.
.
.
The world melted.
Shadows slid across the ceiling like ink in water—stretching, rippling, pooling into shapes that didn't make sense. Kit watched them dissolve through half-lidded eyes, cheek pressed against the cold tile.
When did he get in the bathroom?
He blinked. Tried again.
The last thing he remembered was the bedframe. Wood grain pressed against his spine. The mattress above him. The darkness curling around his shoulders like a blanket. Had he stood up? Had he walked here?
His knees were bruised. His throat tasted like metal.
He didn't remember locking the bathroom door. Didn't remember turning off the light or dragging the towel off the hook.
Time had stopped meaning anything.
Then—
Buzz.
A harsh vibration on porcelain. Kit flinched.
He turned his head slowly. Squinted. There it was. His phone, screen glowing with something too bright, too alive.
Wait… I put that under the mattress.
His body moved on autopilot, sluggish and underwater. He rolled onto his side, limbs clumsy and uncoordinated, and reached for the device like it might vanish if he moved too fast.
Delorah's name burned against the glow.
It pierced through the fog. Branded him.
His thumbs moved without grace, without rhythm. Just impulse and ache.
u said dont forget u… but what if i forget me too
A second message, slower:
its all slipping
His fingers hovered. The screen dimmed.
He didn't know if he'd said enough. Or too much.
Didn't know what she'd hear in it.
Didn't even know if she'd answer.
But for the first time in hours, the silence sounded like it might answer back.
---
The sun had barely dipped when she collapsed onto her bed.
Backpack forgotten at the door. Legs dangling off the edge. Shoes still on.
The day had drained her—Celeste's eerie politeness, the uncomfortable lunch conversation, the way Kit looked pale and unstable in the hall, like his bones were too heavy for his skin.
She hadn't bought the performance. Not for a second.
The buzz startled her.
She reached for the phone, expecting maybe Cass. Or her mom checking in.
But it was him.
Kit.
u said dont forget u… but what if i forget me too
A second message followed:
its all slipping
Delorah sat up so fast the room spun. Her breath caught like it hit a wall.
The air felt wrong. Too thin. Like it couldn't hold the weight of those words.
She called him.
Once. No answer.
Again. Straight to voicemail.
"Dammit, Kit."
She stood. Paced. Her heart was in her throat.
Was he high again? Was he alone? Was he—
She fired off a message:
Where are you? Are you safe? Please answer me, Kit.
No reply.
She stared at the screen until the silence got too loud.
Her mother knocked on the door. "Dinner in twenty."
"I'm not hungry."
A pause. "You alright?"
"I'm fine."
The door shut. Another lie she didn't have time to unpack.
Delorah didn't hesitate. Hoodie. Keys. Phone in hand.
Out the back.
She didn't care if Mr. Honey was home. Didn't care if Sebastian was lurking in some velvet chair with a wine glass and a secret. She'd go through them if she had to.
Kit was unraveling. She could feel it like a wire pulled tight in her chest.
She wasn't going to wait for tragedy. Not this time.
The streetlights were just flickering on when her phone buzzed again.
A new message.
Don't hate me.
Three words.
Three needles to the heart.
Her fingers trembled as she typed:
Where are you?
Three dots blinked.
Then stopped.
No answer.
But she already knew.
There was only one place he could be.
She pressed harder on the gas.
Toward the Honey estate. Toward the gate that had always felt more like a warning than a welcome.
Two blocks away, she parked. Walked the rest.
The Honey estate loomed in the dark like a mausoleum—lit windows glowing too soft for a house that sharp.
The gate was already ajar.
Her breath hitched.
She slipped inside, careful not to let it creak.
The path felt longer than before. As if the bricks themselves were stalling her, whispering: You don't belong here.
Still, she knocked.
No answer.
She knocked again. Harder.
The door opened a crack.
Light spilled out—warm, polished, wrong.
And then Sebastian.
Tie loosened. Crystal glass in hand. Smile too slow.
"Well," he murmured, eyes skating over her like smoke, "if it isn't my favorite little runaway."
Delorah didn't flinch. "I need to see Kit."
Sebastian leaned casually against the doorframe, swirling the amber in his glass. "He's indisposed."
She stepped forward.
"Del—" he started.
But she shoved past him, her shoulder clipping his on the way in. "Kit!"
He didn't follow. Not right away. Just watched her go, then laughed low under his breath.
"You know," he called after her, his voice lilting and cruel, "you're getting awfully comfortable barging into other people's homes."
She didn't turn around. "It stopped feeling like his home a long time ago."
That made his smile twist.
He followed this time. Silent steps behind her.
She took the stairs two at a time. The air grew colder the higher she climbed.
She didn't know which door was his—but she could smell it. Something chemical in the air. Wrong.
She stopped at the last one. Knocked once. Then again, softer.
"Kit?" her voice cracked. "It's me."
No answer.
She opened the door.
There he was.
Curled on the bed, his back to her. Hands slack. Body taut with the kind of tension that didn't belong in sleep.
The bedside lamp buzzed dimly. Long shadows crawled up the wall.
Papers scattered. A lighter. A vial tipped sideways on the floor.
Her breath caught in her throat.
She crossed the room without thinking.
"K–Kit?" she whispered, her hand brushing his shoulder. "It's me."
His eyes cracked open. Slow. Unfocused. Pupils too wide. His breath was shallow.
"Delorah…" His voice was paper-thin. "I told you not to come…"
"You must not have hit send," she murmured, brushing hair from his damp forehead. "Not that I would've listened."
His lips barely moved. "Didn't want you to see me like this."
"Well," she said gently, "here I am."
She sat on the edge of the bed, her fingers still ghosting over his.
Silence. Just the hum of the bedside lamp and the sound of both of them breathing—shallow, uneven, trying not to fall apart.
Then—
A quiet knock against the doorframe.
Delorah's head snapped up.
Sebastian was standing in the doorway. Shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Tie undone. One hand resting casually against the frame, the other swirling a drink in crystal.
He didn't speak for a moment. Just… watched them.
Her hand in Kit's.
The curve of Kit's back.
The vial on the nightstand.
"Touching," he said finally, voice smooth as velvet cut on glass. "You always had a flair for dramatics, Kit, but this might be your most theatrical collapse yet."
Delorah stood. Her eyes burned. "What do you want?"
Sebastian stepped inside. Closed the door behind him with a soft click.
He didn't answer. Just circled the room like he owned it. Like he owned them.
His eyes landed on the lighter. The torn paper. The rolled-up sleeve.
"You're lucky she got here first," he said, lifting the vial with two fingers and inspecting it like art. "I would've just let you ride it out."
"Get out," Delorah said.
Sebastian smiled faintly. "You always fall for the wounded ones, don't you?"
She blinked. "Excuse me?"
He walked closer, voice low. "I've seen the way you look at him. Like he's some kind of riddle you're desperate to solve. Like if you stare long enough, you'll find the soft spot. The answer."
Kit stirred beside them. A low noise in his throat. Delorah turned protectively toward him.
Sebastian's gaze lingered on the motion.
"He gets the stares," he said, almost wistfully. "The concern. The midnight visits."
He smiled—tight, tired. "Must be nice."
Delorah's jaw tightened. "You don't know what nice is."
His expression flickered. "No. But I remember what it felt like to think someone might try."
Kit stirred beside them. A soft groan escaped his throat.
Sebastian's gaze dropped.
"Now?" His voice dropped too. "Now you look at him like he's the only boy in the room."
He crouched by the bed, far too close. Reached out—and brushed a curl behind Kit's ear.
Kit flinched. So did Delorah.
"Don't touch him," she snapped.
He glanced up. "Why not? You do."
"I'm here because I care. Not because I want to control him."
His smile didn't reach his eyes. "Then you're already losing."
Kit's breath hitched. His eyes were glazed but open. Watching. Listening.
Sebastian leaned in, lowering his voice like a secret meant to scar.
"You think you're saving him, Delorah. But he's not falling. He jumped."
"Stop."
"You still think there's a version of him that wants to be whole again." Sebastian looked at Kit. "Isn't that right, brother?"
Kit didn't respond.
Sebastian stood. Straightened his cuffs. Smoothed his shirt with methodical calm.
"You can stay," he said to Delorah. "Hold his hand. Play the savior." His eyes glinted. "But he'll always come back to this. The silence. The static. The smoke."
Delorah said nothing. Her hand trembled slightly where it gripped the edge of the bed.
Sebastian moved to the door. But before leaving, he paused and turned back one last time.
His voice was almost gentle. Almost.
"You know what the difference is between us, Kit?"
Kit blinked slowly.
"You burn to forget. I burn to be remembered."
And with that, he slipped out the door.
---
Downstairs, Sebastian stood in the hallway, one hand braced against the wall, the other still damp from where he'd brushed a curl from Kit's temple. He could hear the soft murmur of Delorah's voice behind the closed bedroom door above—low, frayed, intimate. Like he hadn't just stood in that room watching the cracks spread. Like he hadn't just touched both of them and walked away unscathed.
But he wasn't unscathed.
She'd passed him without flinching. Brushed his arm like he wasn't poison. Like she'd forgotten what he was. Forgotten what power felt like when it leaned in close and whispered your name without saying it.
He tilted the glass in his hand. The amber swirl caught the hallway light—sharp and expensive. Just like the lies they were all telling themselves.
She still thinks she can save him.
The thought almost made him laugh. He sipped again—slower this time. Rolled the stem between his fingers like it was a throat.
You still think he wants to be saved.
Kit had always drawn the strays. Their mother. The housekeeper's daughter. That idiot friend who used to leave notes on the fence like it meant something. And now Delorah.
All of them drawn to the same flame, thinking they could pull him from it.
But none of them saw it.
He doesn't want out.
He just wants someone to watch him burn.
Sebastian's smile faded.
He could still hear her voice from earlier—Kit?—called up the stairs like a prayer that hadn't been meant for him. It never was. No one said Sebastian like that. No one ever had.
He swallowed the rest of the drink and set the glass down—harder than he meant to. The crystal cracked faintly at the rim.
He moved to the study, fingers twitching with something unnameable. Picked up his phone.
A message from their father waited:
"Control is everything."
He read it twice. Then deleted it.
Control was slipping.
Delorah LaRoche…
She wasn't the piece he'd planned to move first. But the board had changed.
She had fire. She had nerve. And he wanted to own it.
Not just to beat Kit.
Not even to prove something to their father.
But because when she looked at Kit—
It made something inside him twist.
She looked at him like he mattered.
Sebastian hated that.
He hated how much he wanted to be looked at the same way.
But that would come later.
For now? Let them cling to each other. Let them pretend the blood wasn't already pooling beneath the surface.
He'd be patient. Polished. The perfect shadow in the corner.
He'd be patient. Polished. The perfect shadow in the corner.
And when they weren't looking?
He'd spin his web.
Wait for the trembling.
And when the ghost got caught—
He'd wrap him up in silk and sink his teeth in.
Because the thing about spiders?
They don't chase.
They let the world come to them.
And the ghost was already tangled.
But her?
His busy little bee.
So golden. So loud. So temptable.
She buzzed too close to the wrong bloom. And soon? He'd coat her wings in honey. Tangle her in sweetness. And watch her struggle—just to see if she'd sting.
He took out his phone and stared at the phone screen.
Father.
Not Dad. Never that.
He hadn't meant to send anything. Not really. He just wanted to look. To feel the weight of it press against his ribs—the way it always did when Kit spiraled like this. Like gravity bending wrong.
But his thumb moved anyway.
Kit's using again. I found him. She was here.
Sent.
He read it back once. Then again.
Simple. Cold. Precise.
He didn't add the rest. The things he wouldn't say out loud.
That Kit hadn't looked real lying there.
That for one awful second, Sebastian thought he was too late.
A flicker of heat curled behind his ribs—shame or satisfaction, he couldn't tell. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
He locked his phone. Poured another drink with a steady hand.
This wasn't about fear.
It was about control.
(It had to be.)
---
Upstairs, Kit hadn't moved in hours. The curtains were drawn. Light fractured across the ceiling like broken promises. Delorah had stayed—for a while. Long enough to stroke his hair. Long enough to whisper that she'd talk to him later. But not long enough to quiet the ache.
Her scent still lingered on his hoodie. Vanilla. Smoke. Something warm. Something that didn't belong here.
The drugs had worn off, leaving behind the usual wreckage: a dull throb in his skull, the acidic scrape of shame in his throat. His stomach turned every time he replayed the scene—her hand in his, her voice trying not to tremble. He picked up his phone.
Typed: I'm sorry you saw me like that. I didn't want you to.
Paused.
Typed again: It's not usually that bad.
Deleted it all.
Sent only: I'm sorry you saw me like that.
Then he shoved the phone away like it had burned him.
The silence pressed in. The shadows yawned wider. His fingers found the edge of his journal. Ink-stained. Frayed. He opened to a blank page, breathing shallowly—then began to write.
Kit's Private Journal – torn page, ink blotches where his hand shook
I told her once I wasn't scared of dying. That was a lie. I'm scared of dying like this.
Curled up. Strung out. Blinking at the ceiling like it might answer something.
She didn't cry. That should've made it easier. Cleaner. But instead, it made me feel like the tragedy had already happened—and I was just the ghost she came back to check on.
She looked at me like I was still in there somewhere. Like if she stared long enough, I'd remember how to climb out.
I think that's the part that hurts the most. That she believes I can still be saved.
That she wants to.
Because I'm not sure I do.
And I keep hearing his voice. Not the venom, not the threat—just that one quiet line I can't unhear.
"Some people are built for power. Others for pity."
What am I, Del? What did you see when you looked at me?
Because I don't know anymore.