"Aunt Leila…"
I begin with a careful tone, my hand moving toward my blade.
"Step away from him. Slowly."
She pulls back slightly from the embrace, confusion evident on her tear-stained face.
"Javier? What are you—"
"That's not your husband," I say, though my voice wavers despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "Or rather, he is. But he's also something far more dangerous."
My words sound absurd even to my own ears.
How do I explain what Existential Resonance has revealed? How do I tell her that the man she loves—the man she's been desperately searching for—is the architect of all this suffering?
Dracus—if that's even his real name—tilts his head slightly, regarding me with those cold, dead eyes.
There's no warmth there.
No humanity.
Just clinical assessment, like a butcher examining livestock.
"Aunt Leila, please!" My voice rises with urgency. "Get away from him! He's—"
SQUELCH!
The sound is wet, horribly so.
