Reality Check.
258 Words
“You shouldn’t be alive,” Nerisea said quietly, eyes on me, not the room.
“You’re the second person to tell me that this week,” I said. “Starting to take it personally.”
“I watched you drown.” Her jaw tightened. “Down in that wreck. You were gone. I could’ve let you sink. I should have.”
“But you didn’t.”
Her gaze flicked to the pendant against my chest. “I shared breath with you. Power. I shoved life back into your lungs.” She stepped closer, voice dropping. “When a siren does that, it isn’t just mercy, Captain. It leaves a mark. An imprint.”
“On me?” I asked.
“On both of us.” Her eyes flashed gold at the edges. “Your soul brushed mine in the dark. You clung to it. Stubborn. Greedy. Typical Drake.”
I thought of the dreams. Of the way her voice found me even in sleep. Of the way my chest hummed when she was near.
“So that’s why I keep seeing you,” I said slowly. “Why you keep dragging me into pretty little death-dreams.”
“It’s why I feel you,” she said. “Every time your heart stumbles, every time you think of jumping off something high. The imprint isn’t a trick, Niklaus. It’s a tether.”
A beat.
“I didn’t ask for a leash,” I muttered.
Her mouth curved, almost fond. “Neither did I. Yet here we are.”
- Writer
