ℍ𝔸𝕌ℕ𝕋𝔼𝔻 - ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪᴋᴀᴇʟꜱᴏɴꜱ

𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖜𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖞 𝖘𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖓

❧ soulmate number three ❧

≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫

The world felt like it had tilted violently off its axis, leaving Ana standing in the center of Amalie's apartment like a shipwreck survivor on unsteady ground. The air around her was heavy, thick with a suffocating tension. She stood there, frozen, but her mind churned like a storm-tossed sea, chaos bubbling just beneath her calm façade. Her hands hung limp at her sides, fingers twitching involuntarily, her brain working frantically to process the words that had just fallen from Max's lips.

"To kill Amalie."

The words echoed in her head, over and over, like the relentless toll of a bell signaling something dark and inevitable. They rang so loudly she could hardly hear the clock ticking on the mantle or the faint creak of the old wooden floor beneath Max's pacing. She stared at him, her chest tight, breath shallow, as if the weight of his confession had siphoned the air from the room. Her eyes searched his face with an almost desperate intensity, clawing for anything that could make this less horrifying, less real. A joke. A lie. A sign of hesitation. But there was none. Only guilt, etched deep into the lines of his expression, so raw and unguarded that she almost had to look away. He wasn't lying.

"Say that again," Ana said at last, her voice low, trembling, each word deliberate. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear it again, but she needed to. She needed to make sense of this madness.

Max exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his disheveled hair as he turned away from her, pacing three steps toward the window and back again. When he finally stopped, he didn't look at her right away. His gaze was fixed on some distant point, his jaw tight with frustration and shame. "You heard me," he muttered finally, voice barely above a whisper. "The witch wants me to anchor myself here—to get a physical foothold. But the condition to stay like that..." He trailed off, his jaw clenching.

Ana felt a sharp spike of anger flare up in her chest. "Is to kill Amalie," she finished for him, the edge in her voice cutting through the silence like a blade.

Max nodded, his face grim. "Yeah."

A heavy silence stretched between them. Ana opened her mouth to say something but no words came out. She was caught between disbelief, fury, and the urgent need to fix this before it spiraled into something they couldn't come back from. Amalie had no idea what was happening. She was still at the Lockwood picnic, blissfully unaware that someone—or something—had drawn a target squarely on her back.

Ana's hand shot up, pressing against her temple as though trying to stave off the pounding headache she didn't technically have. "This...this is insane," she muttered, pacing now as her voice grew sharper. "Why you? Why the hell would a witch even target you? You're harmless, Max—no offense, but you're not exactly the guy people call when they want someone killed."

Max gave a humorless laugh, his hands resting on his hips as he leaned back against the wall. "Tell that to her," he said bitterly. "I'm a ghost, Ana. A dead guy who's linked to Amalie. I guess that makes me the perfect weapon against her. She thinks if she gives me a body again, I'll do whatever she wants. But..." He trailed off again, his expression twisting into something desperate. "I can't do it. You know I can't."