Marcus thought he could betray me without consequences, but he had no idea I could now see his death date floating above his head like a neon sign.
It was Wednesday afternoon when I finally decided to pay my ex-boyfriend a visit. Alexander had returned from his soul collection that morning looking grim and exhausted, with blood on his shirt cuff that he claimed was "occupational hazard." After he'd showered and changed, I'd told him about my plan.
"You want to do what?" he'd asked, not looking up from the financial reports he was reading.
"I want to make Marcus and Lisa pay for what they did to me," I said, pacing around the living room. "They humiliated me, cheated on me, and laughed about it. They deserve consequences."
Alexander had looked up then, his dark eyes studying my face with something that might have been approval.
"And how exactly do you plan to make them pay?"
"I don't know yet," I admitted. "But I have power now. Real power. There has to be something I can do."
"There is," he'd said quietly. "The question is whether you're ready to live with the results."
Now, standing outside the Northwestern University Student Center where Marcus worked as a tutor, I thought I was ready. I'd spent the morning practicing with Midnight, learning to focus my energy into specific, targeted effects instead of just explosive bursts. I wasn't perfect yet, but I was good enough for what I had in mind.
I could see Marcus through the glass doors, sitting at his usual table in the coffee shop area. He looked exactly the same as always - perfectly styled blonde hair, expensive polo shirt, that arrogant smile that used to make me think he was charming. Now it just made me want to wipe it off his face.
What was different was what I could see above his head. Numbers, glowing like digital clock face: 47 years, 3 months, 12 days, 6 hours, 23 minutes.
His death countdown. The exact amount of time Marcus Sterling-banking-family-heir had left to live.
I walked into the coffee shop and ordered a latte, keeping an eye on Marcus while I waited. He was tutoring some freshman girl in economics, leaning a little too close to her, touching her arm more than was necessary. Same old Marcus, already working on his next victim.
The girl looked uncomfortable but was trying to be polite about it. She couldn't have been more than eighteen, with that innocent, trusting look that I'd probably had when I first met Marcus three years ago.
That decided it for me.
I walked over to their table and sat down in the empty chair across from Marcus. He looked up, and for just a moment, I saw genuine surprise in his eyes.
"Emma," he said, recovering quickly. "What are you doing here?"
"I was in the neighborhood," I said sweetly. "Thought I'd stop by and see how you're doing. You remember me, right? Your girlfriend of three years who you cheated on with her roommate?"
The freshman girl's eyes widened, and she looked between Marcus and me with growing understanding and disgust.
"Emma, this isn't the time or place—" Marcus started, but his voice had that nervous edge he got when he was caught doing something wrong.
"Oh, but it is," I interrupted, turning back to the girl with genuine concern. "Sarah, right?" She nodded nervously. "Honey, I just wanted to warn you about Marcus here. He has a tendency to sleep with multiple women at the same time. Currently, he's got his roommate pregnant, at least two other girls on rotation, and he's probably already planning which freshman he'll target next week. You seem like a sweet girl - don't let him turn you into another victim."
Sarah looked at Marcus with new eyes, seeing him clearly for probably the first time. "Is that true?"
Marcus's face went red. "Sarah, don't listen to her. She's just my crazy ex—"
"I'm the ex who caught him cheating," I said firmly. "And you're the girl who's about to make the same mistake I did. Trust me, you deserve better than someone who sees you as a conquest."
Sarah gathered her books quickly, but before she left, she looked Marcus right in the eye. "You're disgusting," she said, loud enough for half the coffee shop to hear. "Don't ever talk to me again."
She walked away with her head high, and I felt a surge of satisfaction that had nothing to do with my powers. Sometimes the best revenge was just telling the truth.
Marcus's face had gone red with anger. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Wrong with me?" I laughed, and it came out harder than I intended. "Marcus, you have no idea what's wrong with me. But you're about to find out."
I focused on the power inside me, the golden warmth that Midnight had taught me to control. But this time, instead of letting it flow outward, I directed it inward - into my eyes, into my voice, into the very air around me.
"Look at me, Marcus," I said softly.
He tried to look away, but he couldn't. My power held his gaze locked on mine.
"Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?" I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than shouting ever could.
"Emma, your eyes..." he whispered, his face going pale as paper. "They're fucking glowing."
"I see your death," I continued, ignoring his language. "I see exactly when it's going to happen. Forty-seven years, three months, twelve days, six hours..." I glanced at the countdown above his head. "Nineteen minutes now. Tick tock, Marcus."
Marcus tried to laugh, but it came out as a strangled sound. "You're crazy. You've completely lost it."
"Have I?" I leaned forward, and the golden light in my eyes got brighter. "Let me show you how you die, Marcus. Let me show you what happens to men who betray the people who love them."
I reached deeper into my power, pulling up images from the darkest corners of my mind. Not real visions - I wasn't actually seeing his future death - but possibilities. Horrific possibilities that my awakened imagination could create and project.
I showed him dying alone in a hospital bed, eaten away by cancer while Lisa and his other girlfriends fought over his money. I showed him his business failing, his family disowning him when they discovered his affairs, his friends abandoning him when he could no longer pay for their loyalty.
I showed him dying unloved, unmourned, forgotten.
Marcus started shaking. "Stop," he whispered. "Please stop."
But I wasn't done. I showed him the women he'd hurt coming back to haunt him. I showed him the lies he'd told catching up with him. I showed him every betrayal, every cruelty, every selfish act of his life coming back to destroy him.
"This is what happens to people like you," I said, my voice echoing with power. "This is what you've earned."
"I'm sorry," he gasped. "I'm sorry, okay? I'll do anything. Just please stop."
I held the visions for another long moment, watching him shake and sweat and hyperventilate with something that felt dangerously close to pleasure. This was what power felt like - not the raw energy I'd been learning to control, but the ability to make someone face the truth about themselves. To strip away all their lies and pretenses and force them to see what they really were.
Marcus wasn't crying yet, but he was close. Good.
Then I pulled my power back, releasing him from the nightmare like letting go of a rope.
Marcus slumped in his chair, his perfectly styled hair damp with sweat, his expensive shirt wrinkled and stained. He looked like he'd aged ten years in ten minutes.
"That's just a taste," I said calmly, standing up from the table. "A preview of what's waiting for you if you don't change. But here's the thing, Marcus - I don't think you can change. I think you're exactly what you've always been. A selfish, lying piece of garbage who destroys everything he touches."
I leaned down so my face was close to his. "So here's what's going to happen. You're going to stay away from innocent girls like Sarah. You're going to tell Lisa the truth about all your other girlfriends. And you're going to spend the rest of your pathetic life wondering when those visions will come true."
I straightened up and smoothed down my dress. "Oh, and Marcus? If I ever hear about you hurting another woman, I'll come back and make those visions look like pleasant dreams."
I walked away, leaving him sitting there shaking and staring at nothing.
My heart was pounding, but not from fear. From exhilaration. My hands were trembling with leftover energy, and I could taste something like copper and lightning on my tongue. Using my power like that - in a controlled, targeted way - felt incredible. Like finally flexing muscles I'd never known I had.
I'd just reduced Marcus Sterling, heir to a banking fortune and my personal tormentor, to a whimpering mess with nothing but my will and imagination. The rush was better than any drug.
The coffee was terrible anyway.
My next stop was the apartment I used to share with Lisa. I still had my key - she'd been too busy celebrating her pregnancy to think about changing the locks.
I let myself in quietly. Lisa was in the living room, talking on the phone with someone, probably complaining about morning sickness or planning her fake wedding. She was wearing a designer dress that probably cost more than I used to make in a month, her blonde hair perfectly curled, her makeup flawless.
She looked happy. That was about to change.
"...and then Marcus said we could have the ceremony at his family's country club," she was gushing to whoever was on the other end. "Can you believe it? Me, getting married at the Sterling estate. I always knew I'd end up with someone with real money, not like that loser Emma was dating... oh wait, that was the same guy!" She laughed at her own joke.
I walked into the living room and stood there until she noticed me.
"Oh shit," she said, nearly dropping her phone. "Emma! What the hell are you doing here? How did you get in?"
"I still live here, remember?" I said, noting how she'd instinctively moved to protect her still-flat stomach. "Or at least I did until you decided to steal my boyfriend and rub it in my face."
Lisa ended her call quickly and tried to compose herself, but I could see the guilt and nervousness in her eyes. Good. She should be nervous.
"Look, Emma, what happened with Marcus and me—"
"Was you being a scheming bitch who saw an opportunity and took it," I finished for her. "But let's not pretend this was some grand romance. You saw dollar signs and spread your legs. Very classy."
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Marcus was never really yours, Emma. He told me you two were practically broken up anyway. He just stayed with you because he felt sorry for you."
"Is that what he told you?" I asked. "Interesting. Did he also tell you about Jessica from his economics class? Or Amanda from the gym? Or that brunette from the coffee shop whose name I never caught?"
Lisa's confident smile faltered slightly. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the fact that Marcus has been cheating on you the entire time he was cheating on me with you," I said. "You think you won some great prize? You just became another name on his list."
"You're lying," Lisa said, but I could hear the uncertainty in her voice.
"Am I?" I pulled out my phone and showed her the photos I'd taken twenty minutes ago - Marcus with his arm around that freshman girl, Marcus kissing another girl outside the library last week, Marcus with a third girl I didn't recognize entering his apartment building.
I'd been watching him for days, preparing for this moment. Turns out surveillance was a lot easier when you had supernatural senses.
Lisa stared at the photos, her face going white. "These... these could be old."
"Check the timestamps," I said. "That first one was taken this afternoon. While you were at home planning your wedding to a man who's already shopping for your replacement."
Lisa sank down onto the couch, still staring at the phone. "No," she whispered. "He loves me. He said he loves me."
"He said he loved me too," I pointed out. "Right up until he was screwing you in the back of his car."
I could see tears starting to form in Lisa's eyes, and part of me - the old Emma - wanted to comfort her. But the new Emma, the one with power and anger and the memory of being humiliated in that alley, wanted something else entirely.
I wanted her to feel exactly what I'd felt that day.
"You know what the really funny part is?" I said, settling into the chair across from her. "He's not even the father of your precious meal ticket baby."
Lisa's head snapped up so fast I was surprised she didn't get whiplash. "What?"
"The baby," I said, enjoying every second of her growing panic. "Marcus isn't the father. You were screwing that bartender from O'Malley's at the same time you were screwing Marcus, remember? Tom, was it? The one with the motorcycle and the tattoos your parents would hate?"
Lisa's face went from white to green faster than a traffic light. "How could you possibly know that?"
"I know lots of things now," I said, letting some of my power leak into my voice just enough to make the air shimmer slightly around me. "Including the fact that you've been lying to Marcus about when you got pregnant. You told him it happened on New Year's Eve, but it actually happened two weeks later. With Tom. In the back room of O'Malley's after your shift ended."
I was guessing about some of the details, but the way Lisa's face crumpled told me I was hitting close enough to the mark. My awakened intuition was showing me glimpses of her secrets, revealing the lies she'd built her whole future on.
"You're going to lose everything," I continued. "Marcus is going to find out about Tom, and about Jessica, and about all the other lies you've both been telling each other. And when he does, he's going to leave you with nothing. No rich boyfriend, no country club wedding, no financial security. Just a baby whose real father works at a bar and doesn't even know you're pregnant."
Lisa was crying now, ugly tears that ruined her perfect makeup. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"Because you did it to me first," I said simply. "You were supposed to be my friend, Lisa. I trusted you. I told you things I never told anyone else. And you used all of that against me."
"I never meant—"
"Yes, you did," I interrupted. "You planned this. You set out to steal Marcus from the moment I introduced you to him. You saw him as your ticket to a better life, and you didn't care who you had to destroy to get it."
I stood up and walked to the window. "But here's the thing you never understood about me, Lisa. I'm not as weak as you thought I was. I never was. I was just... sleeping."
I turned back to her, and I let some of my power leak into my voice, into the air around me. Not enough to hurt her, but enough to make her feel the weight of what I'd become.
"Now I'm awake," I said. "And I remember everything."
Lisa shrank back against the couch cushions. "Emma, your eyes..."
"I know," I said. "Pretty, aren't they?"
I walked toward the door, then paused and looked back at her.
"Oh, and Lisa? You might want to call your doctor. I have a feeling you're going to need medical attention soon."
I left her there, crying and clutching her stomach.
By the time I got back to the mansion, the afternoon news was already reporting on Marcus's breakdown at the university. Apparently, he'd been found in the student center bathroom, hyperventilating and babbling about death visions and "glowing demon eyes." Campus security had to call an ambulance.
The best part? When the EMTs tried to calm him down, he kept insisting that his ex-girlfriend was a supernatural creature who could see people's death dates. They'd sedated him and admitted him for a 72-hour psychiatric hold.
His parents were already flying in from Connecticut, convinced their golden boy was having some kind of drug-induced psychotic break. Marcus was going to have a hell of a time explaining this one to Daddy.
Alexander was waiting for me in the living room, reading the news report on his tablet. There was a half-empty glass of what looked like very expensive whiskey on the side table.
"Subtle," he said without looking up, but I could hear the amusement in his voice.
"I thought so," I said, settling into the chair next to him and noting that he'd poured me a glass too. "How was your day at the soul-collecting office?"
"Productive," he said, finally looking at me with those dark eyes that seemed to see everything. "The Wall Street banker went quietly. Almost seemed relieved, actually. Thirty years of guilt can be exhausting. He thanked me at the end."
"That's... weird."
"Death isn't always a punishment, Emma. Sometimes it's a mercy." He gestured to the tablet. "Unlike what you did today."
"You think what I did was wrong?"
Alexander set down his tablet and really looked at me then, studying my face like he was seeing something new there. "I think what you did was necessary. Marcus and Lisa made choices, and choices have consequences. You simply... accelerated the timeline."
"And Lisa?"
"Is currently in the emergency room," he said, finally looking at me. "Stress-induced complications. She lost the baby."
I felt a moment of something that might have been guilt, but it passed quickly. "I didn't do anything to hurt the baby directly."
"No," Alexander agreed. "You just gave her body the push it needed to reject a pregnancy that was causing her stress. Very elegant, actually."
"Is that wrong?"
Alexander set down his tablet and studied my face. "Do you feel like it was wrong?"
I thought about it. Lisa had betrayed me, humiliated me, stolen my boyfriend and laughed about it. She'd made choices, and now she was facing the consequences of those choices.
"No," I said finally. "I don't."
"Then it wasn't wrong," he said simply. "Right and wrong are luxuries for people who don't have real power, Emma. We have responsibilities."
"What kind of responsibilities?"
"To use our abilities wisely," he said. "To maintain balance. To make sure that actions have consequences and that justice is served, even when the human legal system fails."
I thought about Sarah's killer, still walking free. About all the other predators and liars and cruel people in the world who hurt others without consequence.
"Is this what you meant when you said this was just the beginning?" I asked.
Alexander smiled, and there was something both proud and dangerous in his expression.
"This was you playing with toys," he said. "What you did today was the supernatural equivalent of pulling pigtails. When you're ready - really ready - I'll show you what real power looks like."
"What does real power look like?"
"Real power," he said, "changes the world."
I thought about that as I went upstairs to change for dinner. Marcus was probably still in the hospital, sedated and under observation for a nervous breakdown. Lisa was mourning the loss of her baby and her dreams of a rich husband. Both of them were facing the consequences of their choices for the first time in their privileged lives.
And I felt... good about it. Not guilty, not conflicted, but satisfied in a way I'd never experienced before.
For the first time in my life, I'd had the power to make things fair. To balance the scales. To give people exactly what they deserved.
I was starting to understand why they called it Hell Princess. Not because I was evil, but because I could be the instrument of justice when justice was needed. I could be the nightmare that visited people like Marcus and Lisa - people who thought they could hurt others without consequences.
And there was so much injustice in the world.
So many people like Sarah's killer, walking free while innocent ghosts begged for help.
So many predators like Marcus, hunting fresh victims while their previous conquests suffered in silence.
So many liars like Lisa, building their happiness on other people's pain.
I looked at my reflection in the bedroom mirror. My eyes were still faintly golden, like embers that refused to die out. When I smiled, I could see that my canine teeth were definitely sharper than they'd been this morning. Not vampire-sharp, but noticeable. Predatory.
I was changing. Becoming something new. Something stronger. Something that could make a real difference in the world.
The old Emma Sterling had died in that alley behind Luigi's Pizza, watching her boyfriend cheat on her while she dug through garbage for food like some kind of pathetic scavenger.
Emma Thorne, Hell Princess, wife of a fallen angel, was just getting started.
And I had so many plans.
End of Chapter 5