HÊR CURSE

Chapter 4: “She’s Humming”

The stairs blurred.

Jimmy took them two at a time, his lungs burning, phone still pressed to his ear even though the call had dropped a minute ago. Tessa’s last words kept repeating in his head on a loop: _She’s at my door. She’s knocking._

“Hold on, Tess,” he muttered, more to himself than her. “Hold on.”

Floor three. Four. Five. His legs felt like lead, but stopping wasn’t an option. Not now. Not after he’d said _yes_.

The hallway on the fifth floor was empty. Dead quiet. The kind of quiet that made your ears ring.

Her door was cracked open two inches.

Jimmy stopped dead.

The apartment didn’t smell like Tessa. It didn’t smell like cheap instant noodles and lavender shampoo like it always did. It smelled cold. Metallic. Like the air in the hospital room before the thing opened its eyes.

He pushed the door wider with his foot.

“Tessa?” His voice cracked. “Tess, it’s me!”

No answer.

But he heard it. A soft thump. Like a fist hitting carpet. Then another. Coming from the living room.

His heart dropped to his stomach.

He moved fast and quiet, the way he used to when Mira was asleep and he didn’t want to wake her. Old habits for the wrong situation.

Tessa was on the floor.

She was curled on her side in front of the couch, shaking. Her nails dug into her left wrist, drawing thin red lines. Her mouth was open, jaw clenched so hard a vein stood out on her neck.

She wasn’t screaming. She was biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself.

“Jimmy!” The word tore out of her, wet and broken. “Get it out! Get it out of me!”

He dropped to his knees beside her without thinking. “Tess, I’m here. I’m here—”

“Don’t touch me!” She flinched away, eyes wild. Blood ran down her chin from where she’d bitten herself. “It’s in my head. It’s using her voice. It’s—”

She gasped, arching off the floor. Her back bowed like something was trying to crawl out of her spine.

Jimmy grabbed her shoulders before he could stop himself. “Tessa, breathe. Look at me. Breathe!”

Her eyes found his. For half a second, they were clear. Real Tessa. Scared, angry, desperate.

“Run,” she whispered. “Jimmy, run. It’s not—”

Her body seized again.

The mark on Jimmy’s palm flared white-hot. He hissed, jerking back, but it was too late. The red glow had already spread from his skin to hers, racing up her wrist like spilled ink.

A matching mark bloomed on the back of her hand. Same shape. Same burning red.

“No,” Jimmy said. He sounded like a kid. “No, I said me. Take me!”

_I never said it had to be you,_ the voice purred in his head, pleased. _You said ‘stay the night.’ I’m a guest, Jimmy. I go where I’m invited._

Tessa screamed.

It wasn’t her voice. Not entirely. It was Tessa’s throat, but the sound was layered, wrong, like Mira’s voice was speaking over hers from half a second behind. The lullaby. The one Mira hummed when she couldn’t sleep.

_Hush now, hush now, the night is long…_

Jimmy clamped a hand over her mouth before she could shatter her throat. “Stop it! Stop it, damn you!”

Tessa’s eyes rolled back. Her body went rigid, then limp.

For three seconds, the apartment was silent again.

Then her eyes opened.

They were Tessa’s eyes. Same brown, same shape. But the light behind them was gone. Replaced with something old and amused and hungry.

She sat up slowly, like she was testing a new body. Her hands flexed. She looked down at the mark on her wrist, tilted her head.

Jimmy couldn’t breathe.

“Tessa?” he whispered. He didn’t know why he said it. He already knew.

“Tessa” smiled.

It was Mira’s smile. The crooked one she got when she was about to tease him.

But the eyes didn’t smile.

The thing standing up in Tessa’s body stretched, rolled her shoulders, and looked at Jimmy like he was a toy she’d been promised.

“Hi, Jimmy,” it said. The voice was perfect. Mira’s voice. Warm, familiar, wrong. “Thanks for letting me in.”

Jimmy scrambled back, his hands slipping on the carpet. “Get out of her! Get out right now!”

The thing in Tessa’s skin c****d its head. “You invited me, Jimmy. I’m being polite. I’m staying the night.”

“It’s not her night to give!” His voice broke. He hated how small he sounded.

“Isn’t it?” It—she—Tessa’s body—stepped forward. Her movements were fluid, too smooth. Human, but not quite. “You said yes. She said yes when she opened the door. That’s two yesses, Jimmy. That’s a contract.”

Jimmy’s eyes darted to the door. He could run. He could leave Tessa here and run and maybe—

The mark on his palm burned.

_Run, and I’ll make sure she never wakes up again,_ the voice said, not in his ears but behind his eyes. _Stay, and we’ll talk. Like old times._

Tessa’s body sat on the edge of the couch, legs crossed, humming that lullaby under her breath. Her fingers drummed on her knee in the exact rhythm Mira used when she was thinking.

Jimmy’s chest hurt.

“That’s not you,” he said. His voice was hoarse. “You don’t get to wear her face. You don’t get to sound like her.”

The thing smiled wider. “Don’t I? I know everything she knew, Jimmy. Every secret. Every time you cried in the shower so she wouldn’t hear. Every time you called her name when you thought you were asleep.”

“Shut up.”

“I can make it stop hurting,” it said softly. It leaned forward, resting its chin on its hand, mimicking Mira’s favorite pose. “I can make her stop hurting. I can make you forget you ever met me. One night, Jimmy. That’s all I asked.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?” It reached out, brushing a strand of Tessa’s hair behind her ear with a gesture so intimate it made Jimmy sick. “Touch me. You’ll see. I feel like her. I remember like her. I love like her.”

Jimmy slapped her hand away.

Tessa’s body didn’t flinch. It just watched him, patient.

“You don’t love her,” Jimmy said. “You don’t even know what that means.”

The smile slipped for half a second. Something cold and old flashed behind Tessa’s eyes.

“Love is a transaction, Jimmy,” it said. “You give me something, I give you something. You gave me permission. Now I give you this.”

It reached for his hand.

He tried to pull away, but the marks on their palms connected.

Fire shot up his arm.

Images flooded his head—not memories, but possibilities. Tessa laughing. Tessa safe. Tessa forgetting the hospital, forgetting the fear, forgetting him. All he had to do was let go and let it take the night.

He could feel it pulling at the edges of his mind, gentle but relentless.

_One night,_ it whispered. _Then I’ll give her back. Mostly._

“Mostly?” Jimmy gasped.

_No one comes out unchanged, Jimmy._

Tessa’s real voice broke through, faint and distant, like she was underwater. “Ji…mmy…”

The thing’s grip tightened. “Shh. She’s tired. Let her rest.”

Jimmy looked at Tessa’s face. Her lips were moving, but no sound came out. Tears tracked down her cheeks, but her eyes stayed empty.

He thought about Mira. About the way she’d looked at him in the hospital bed, terrified and alone. About how he’d failed her then.

He wasn’t failing Tessa now.

He jerked his hand free.

The connection broke with a sound like tearing paper.

Tessa’s body gasped, clutching her chest. The humming stopped. For a moment, real fear flashed across her face. Real Tessa, pushing through.

“Jimmy… run…”

The thing’s expression hardened. It stood up, fast, too fast. “You don’t get to take it back.”

“I just did,” Jimmy said.

He grabbed Tessa under the arms and dragged her toward the door. She was dead weight, limp but breathing. The mark on her wrist pulsed like a second heartbeat.

The thing in her skin didn’t chase them. It just stood there, watching, smiling that wrong smile.

“Run, Jimmy,” it called after them, Mira’s voice dripping with amusement. “But I’m already in the house. And I don’t leave without saying goodbye.”

Jimmy slammed the door behind him and ran.

Tessa was still breathing. Still warm.

But when he looked down at her hand, the red mark was spreading. Slowly. Up her wrist, toward her elbow.

Like it was settling in..