The Demon's Half

Chapter 1

The kitchen knife bit into the apple, its crisp flesh splitting with a sharp crack. Juice slid down my wrist like blood. I didn't wipe it away. I just stood there, letting it trace its path, when something brushed the nape of my neck.

"Morgan."
It seemed to say.
It slithered from above. From the attic.
It was always the attic.
And I've refused to go up there ever since this nightmare began.

I forced myself to keep cutting the apple; to pretend I didn't hear anything. Pretend it was nothing. Wind, maybe.
But even I didn't believe that.

Shadows shifted where they shouldn't. The ceiling groaned. Our lives creaked with it, splintering under the weight of something we'd invited in.

Four days ago, Mia and I made a choice. A choice we couldn't take back.
We'd sat in this exact kitchen, hands trembling over the Ouija board, desperate enough to ask questions that probably had no answers.
Since then, the mirrors refused to reflect, and the attic refused to sleep.
Something was answering.
... And it wasn't human.

But the worst part, the part that really got under my skin, was that beneath all the fear, something far more dangerous had taken root.
Hope.

"What if it's him?" Mia whispered. "What if it's Papá?"
Her blue eyes, too big for her too-thin face, searched mine.

I didn't answer. The knife kept moving in my hand.

She hovered by the fridge, twisting her fingers. "Morgan... we should try again."

"Try what?"

"The board."

I snorted. "Right. Because inviting more spirits to trash the place is definitely a smart plan."

"If it's him... maybe he has answers."

I stayed quiet.
What could I say? That I wasn't sure I wanted answers? That every question I had for him came with a complaint attached? That he'd left us drowning, and now we were begging ghosts for help?

The thud was heavy enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Mia stiffened, and I heard her breath catch. Definitely not insects. This was bigger. The kind of sound furniture makes when it's dragged across a floor... which was impossible.
The attic was completely empty.

"This house is old," I said. "Our great-grandmother got it as a wedding gift. It creaks."

"It's not the house..."

"Maybe ratas." I forced a shrug.

Laughter almost slipped out, but I swallowed it.
Funny, how a life could be so close to collapsing that laughter felt like a luxury.

"You didn't mean it, did you?" Mia's pajama top slid off one shoulder, her collarbone jutting out like a bird's wing. Too fragile.

"Mean what?"

"What you said this morning." Her voice cracked. "About... them wanting you dead."

I blinked, but then it hit me. The joke I'd tossed out without thinking. Or half-joke.
I hadn't realized she'd heard.
Carajo. La peor hermana del universo.

My gaze drifted around our crumbling kitchen: the peeling walls, the leaky window, the chimney we barely used. Not because it wasn't cold—Gods, it was—but because I was scared the wood Dad chopped wouldn't last the winter.
And when summer finally came, we'd melt in this house like wax.

I forced myself to look at Mia, really look at her: the dark circles under her lashes. The way she stood too stiffly, as if one wrong breath could break her.
I couldn't let her see how much of me had already broken.

"Of course not," I lied gently. "We're fine, Mia. We're going to be fine."

The Ouija board sat where we'd left it, untouched, a door cracked open but never closed. I'd thought it was harmless, but I was wrong. We hadn't been searching for answers. We'd been offering ourselves up.
And we'd given it exactly what it needed:

An invitation.

"Once we contact Papá, it'll get better," she whispered.

I nodded, because there was no point arguing.
No point telling her the truth; I didn't think we'd called our father at all.

My gaze flicked to the attic staircase.
To the shadows bending against the doorframe.
To the cold crawling down my spine.

It knew our names.

When that chill brushed my neck again, it didn't feel like wind. It felt like a caress. It felt like a breath.