"Do you hear that?" he whispered.
No one answered.
Because they did. The whispers. They came from inside the walls, from inside their bones.
traitor you watched him die you laughed you did nothing
Bee gripped her pistol tighter, hands slick with sweat. "It's in my head."
"No," Dina whispered, wide-eyed. "It's in all of ours."
The whispers became a low hum. Like a lullaby sung by a throat stuffed with mud. Like a choir of buried children.
Outside, the trees bent unnaturally, as though bowing to something walking beneath them. She came first.
Marque, once a woman, now something not even the Devil would welcome.
Her skin was bone-pale, stretched tight over her face like wet parchment. Her eyes were voids filled with grief-shaped stars. A wedding ring still clung to her skeletal finger, smeared with dried blood. Her dress shimmered like oil in water, every movement warping the world around her. She hovered just outside the attic house, whispering things only the house could hear. And the house obeyed.
Wood cracked. Nails twisted and screamed. The door unlatched with a whimper.
Bee pointed the gun at the door, her arms shaking. "Don't let her in," she said, more to herself than to the others.
"She's already here," Marco said.
Because Marque didn't walk. She appeared.
One blink—and she stood in the corner of the room.
Watching.
Her face was motherly, sorrowful—until it smiled.
Then it was wrong. Too wide. Lips cracked at the corners. Teeth like pearls dipped in rot.
"You played with him," she said, voice soft as silk soaked in venom. "But none of you loved him. You loved your power over him."
Enzo screamed and fired. The bullet vanished before it reached her, swallowed by the air around her like it never existed.
She drifted forward.
"You made him cry," she whispered. "Do you know what a child's grief sounds like inside a coffin?"
Dina threw a bottle of lighter fluid toward her, then struck a match. The room went up in flame and shadow.
Meanwhile…
Wrath waited outside. He didn't need to go in. Not yet. Instead, he dug. He dragged his claws through the earth like a plow through memory. He was looking for something. Pieces of them.
Hair.
Blood.Scraps of clothes torn in past fights. The trinkets they dropped while beating Lukas into the ground. And one by one, he found them.
He stuffed them into his chest, where his heart used to be. Now it was a furnace of hate, fueled by the pieces of his son's torment. He felt his wife inside the attic. She was singing now.
Inside… The flames didn't kill Marque. They made her beautiful. The fire danced for her. Wrapped around her body like a gown of despair. And as it grew, the attic began to shift. Walls stretched, twisted, and changed. No longer an attic—now a memory.
A hallway of the school where Lukas once cried.
A bathroom where he was held down.
A locker, closed and locked from outside, where he was stuffed like trash.
Bee screamed, dropping her weapon. "No—no! This isn't real!"
"Oh," Marque said, drifting closer, "but it is. This is where you killed him first. With your silence."
She touched Bee's forehead.
And Bee remembered everything. The screams. The bruises. The laughter from the others. And the one look Lukas gave her before walking away for the last time.
She fell to her knees, sobbing, before the fire consumed her in a slow, loving kiss.
Marco tried to run. Enzo pulled him back. "There's no running!" Enzo screamed. "We fight!" Dina raised a shotgun and pulled the trigger.
This time, Marque bled. Black ichor spilled from her chest, and for a moment, she staggered. Wrath howled from outside, feeling her pain. But Marque only smiled wider.
"You're learning," she whispered. "Good. You'll need that courage in Hell."
Outside, Wrath stepped forward. He touched the house. It aged instantly. Wood rotted, shingles fell, windows shattered, and time crumbled. The house was dying with its occupants.
In the attic-turned-nightmare, Enzo screamed into the darkness, pulling Dina and Marco toward a back window.
"We jump!" he yelled. "Now!"
"No—" Dina gasped, "she's in my head—she's in my fucking head—"
Marque hovered inches above the ground now, bleeding smoke and sorrow. Her fingers stretched, long and thin, tipped with glass nails. She reached toward them.
"Let me show you your guilt."
Enzo didn't wait. He shoved Dina and Marco through the broken window. They fell into the night, into the trees, into salvation—or something worse. Then he turned, just in time to see Marque in front of him. She placed her palm on his chest and whispered: "You laughed when he bled."
Outside, Dina screamed as she hit the ground. Marco landed beside her, coughing, groaning, but alive.
They looked up.
The house crumbled.
The flames turned blue.
Then black.
And then, there was only silence.
But they weren't alone.
From the shadows, figures watched them. More than one. Dozens. All shaped wrong. All remembering. And behind them… came the sound of footsteps. Slow, deliberate, two sets.
Wrath. And Marque. And they were smiling.