UNTIL THE END OF ME

CHAPTER THREE

Olivia felt her pulse thrum in her ears.

“Over and over again?” she repeated, her voice barely a whisper.

Liam nodded. “Different places. Different lives. But always us. Always ending the same.”

“And how does it end?”

His jaw clenched. “Badly.”

She stared at him, trying to process it—trying to reason with logic when everything about this moment defied it. Reincarnation? Soulmates? Some kind of curse? It sounded like fiction. Like a twisted fairytale.

“I don’t even believe in that stuff,” she said, half-laughing—but it was the kind of laugh you make when you’re afraid.

“I didn’t either,” Liam murmured. “Until I started dreaming in languages I don’t speak. Until I painted your face two years before I ever met you.”

He walked around the counter and reached into a worn leather satchel tucked near the register. From it, he pulled a thick sketchbook—pages weathered and curling at the edges.

He handed it to her.

Olivia hesitated, then opened the cover.

Her breath left her in a rush.

Dozens of sketches stared back at her. Her own face—sometimes with longer hair, sometimes dressed in clothes she’d never worn. Some smiling. Some crying. One with a scar that traced down her cheek like lightning. All her.

The pages trembled in her hands.

“This is impossible,” she said, but she didn’t stop flipping.

“You think I haven’t told myself that a hundred times?” he said softly. “But the dreams started when I was a kid. I didn’t even know who you were, but I drew you anyway. I’ve been drawing you my whole life.”

She looked up at him, heart pounding.

“Why me?”

“I wish I knew,” he replied. “But every time we find each other, something tears us apart.”

Olivia pushed the sketchbook away like it might burn her. “This doesn’t make sense. I’m just… normal. I have no idea who I was in a past life. Hell, I can’t even get my dad to show up to graduation.”

Liam's expression flickered—something unreadable, pained.

“That might be true now,” he said. “But you weren’t always just normal.”

The air between them shifted. Thickened.

“I think… you used to be something more.”

She stared at him. “More how?”

He took a moment, then said quietly, “Powerful.”

A silence settled like dust.

“You sound insane,” Olivia said, but her voice lacked conviction. Because somewhere deep inside, the word powerful struck a chord. A memory not her own. A flicker of something wild behind her ribs.

Liam stood, walked to the window, and looked out.

“Last time, we were in a city made of glass,” he said. “I remember seeing towers touch the clouds. You had fire in your hands. Real fire. You laughed when you used it. You weren’t afraid of it like you are now.”

She blinked. “Afraid of what?”

“Of yourself.”

Those three words hit her harder than she wanted to admit.

“What if I don’t want any of this?” she said, her voice suddenly sharp. “What if I just want to live a normal life? Drink my coffee, ignore my father’s calls, and forget about creepy dreams and broken pasts?”

Liam turned to face her, expression unreadable.

“Then walk away,” he said. “You can. No one’s stopping you.”

But the way he said it… she knew he didn’t believe she would.

And she didn’t want to.

Because beneath the fear and the absurdity, there was a part of her that wanted to know. Wanted to remember.

And—God help her—there was a part of her that wanted him.

She walked to him slowly. The space between them was only a breath wide now.

“What happens if I stay?” she asked.

His voice was quiet. Almost reverent.

“Then we figure it out. Together.”

He looked like he was about to say more, but then something shifted. His eyes darted to the door, brows knitting.

“Did you hear that?”

Olivia froze. “What?”

A creak. Barely audible.

He moved fast—faster than someone should. In seconds he was at the back of the café, checking locks, windows. Olivia followed, nerves prickling.

“I locked everything,” he muttered.

Another sound. Closer this time. Like footsteps across glass.

Then silence.

Liam backed toward her.

“We’re not alone.”

A chill swept down her spine.

“Who would follow us here?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled something from his coat—a pendant on a long chain. It looked old, like something out of a museum. He pressed it into her palm.

“Keep this with you,” he said. “If something happens—don’t let it go.”

“What is it?”

He looked at her. “A piece of what you used to be.”

Before she could ask anything else, the front door blew open—violently.

The café lights flickered. Every bulb shattered at once.

And from the darkness, a voice whispered:

“She’s not ready yet.”

The shadows thickened around them, swallowing corners of the room that had once held familiar shapes. Now, the café felt like another place entirely—darker, older, as if it had peeled back a mask and shown its real face.

Liam took a step forward, placing himself between Olivia and the creeping blackness.

“Show yourself,” he said again, louder this time.

The temperature dropped with his words. The air grew damp and electric, the way it does just before a storm cracks open the sky.

From the back corner—where just moments ago, shelves of beans and bags of sugar had been—came a shimmer, like heat rising off asphalt. It warped the air until a form emerged. Tall. Cloaked in something that shifted between smoke and cloth. Its face was indistinct, like it was wearing a mask carved out of shadow.

Olivia’s heart beat a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Her legs wanted to bolt, but her body stayed rooted, frozen in place.

“You brought her here too soon,” the figure hissed.

Liam’s jaw clenched. “She came on her own.”

“She’s not ready.”

“She’s stronger than you think.”

“I know exactly what she is,” the voice rasped. “I remember the last time.”

The pendant in Olivia’s hand burned hotter. She winced but didn’t let go. The chain around her neck glowed faintly now, visible even in the low light.

“She remembers nothing,” Liam said, his voice suddenly quiet—measured. “And she will remember on her own terms.”

The figure took a step forward. Glass on the floor crunched beneath its weight, but it left no footprints. Olivia’s breath caught as it moved into the flickering edge of the overhead lights.

Its face—or lack thereof—seemed to pulse with light and dark, shifting like smoke.

“But she already dreams, doesn’t she?” it whispered. “The fire. The blood. The ruin.”

Olivia flinched. She hadn’t told Liam about the fire. Not in detail.

“Stay away from her,” Liam warned.

The figure tilted its head as if amused. “You still think you can protect her? After what you did?”

Liam’s hand flexed at his side. The tattoos on his wrist—thin black script she hadn’t noticed before—glowed softly, the same dull gold as the pendant.

The figure laughed. A horrible, echoing sound that didn’t seem to come from one mouth—but many.

“You should’ve let her burn.”

Without warning, it lunged.

Liam threw his hand forward—and with a burst of wind and light, the pendant around Olivia’s neck exploded in brightness, blinding and wild. The air cracked like a whip, and a wave of pressure knocked the figure back into the wall with inhuman force.

Shelves fell. Mugs shattered. Lights popped.

The entire room fell into darkness.

Silence reigned.

For a moment, all Olivia could hear was her own breath, ragged and sharp, and the pounding of her heart.

Then the emergency lights kicked on, casting everything in sterile red.

The corner where the figure had stood was empty now. Just broken shelves and coffee beans scattered like confetti.

Liam was still standing in front of her, his breathing heavy.

She reached for his arm. “What… what was that?”

He didn’t look at her right away. When he did, his eyes were rimmed with gold.

“Something that’s not supposed to find you yet.”

“But it did.”

“I know.”

“I need answers, Liam,” she whispered. “You keep saying I’m not ready, but whatever that was—it knows me.”

Liam’s voice dropped low. “You’re right.”

He turned toward her fully now, something like guilt in his eyes.

“I’ll tell you everything, Olivia.”

She blinked. “When?”

Then the shadows at the window shifted again.

And the voice returned—this time, from directly behind her.

“She remembers.”