Broken

The book writes back

Kade shouldn’t have been discharged.

But hospitals have cameras. And Reapers walk through walls.

So at 5AM we were running. Again.

Me. Kade, leaning on me, still bleeding through the bandages.

Tayo, groggy in the back of a stolen cab Kade somehow paid for with gold coins that turned to cash.

“Where are we going?” Tayo asked. Voice small.

“Safehouse,” Kade said. “Different one.”

“You’re not telling me anything,” Tayo snapped. Then he saw the book in my lap. “Is that why that thing attacked us? Because of THAT?”

I didn’t answer. The book was heavy. And warm.

And the words *3 DAYS* were still on the cover.

We got to a new safehouse. Basement. No windows. Wards glowing faint blue this time.

Kade collapsed onto the mattress the second the door shut.

“Don’t let anyone touch it,” he told me. Eyes already closing. “Especially not you.”

I nodded. Then I waited until his breathing evened out.

Until Tayo fell asleep on the floor with his head on my bag.

Then I opened the book.

It shouldn’t have opened. Last time it burned me.

This time it flipped to a blank page on its own.

Ink bled onto the paper. Like it was writing itself.

Not my handwriting.

*_"SEER ADA ADEBAYO.

VIOLATION: INTERFERED WITH DESIGNATED DEATH.

PENALTY: ONE LIFE FOR ONE LIFE.

YOU HAVE 3 DAYS TO CHOOSE."__

My blood went cold.

“Choose what?” I whispered.

The ink kept moving:

__"WHO DIES INSTEAD OF TAYO ADEBAYO.

3 DAYS.

OR WE TAKE BOTH."_*

The book slammed shut on its own.

And underneath the new words, in tiny silver letters, was a name I knew.

*Kade Veyren.*

My head snapped up. Kade was awake. Watching me.

He’d heard everything.

“So,” he said quietly. “That’s why they let me live.”

He tried to smile. Failed.

“They never planned to kill you, Ada. They planned to make you kill me.”

The room went silent except for the wards humming.

Tayo stirred. “What’s going on?”

I looked at the book. At Kade. At my brother.

For the first time, the book wasn’t showing me the future.

It was forcing me to decide it.

---