?? Content Warning: This chapter contains intense supernatural combat, spiritual trauma, and disturbing moments involving spiritual possession, loss, and rescue attempts. Reader discretion is advised.

  One would expect chaos after watching someone you love get ripped out of existence.

  Instinct should tell you to scream, to dive into the dark after them, to fight with everything you have.

  But how do you chase what isn’t bound by reality?

  You don’t get to tell your grandkids, “Oh, Jamey got kidnapped by a spook.”

  Alec and I hovered in the spiritual plane—weightless, suspended mid-flight, our souls still reaching toward the void where Jamey had just vanished. The thing that took him hadn’t run. It hadn’t hidden.

  It lingered. It watched.

  And then came the pull.

  Not a whisper or a warning. A summons.

  A violent lurch ripped through my center, like a hook embedded in my soul had been yanked backward with divine force.

  The silver cord tethering me to my body flared white-hot, pulsing with urgency.

  Alec staggered beside me, his own tether convulsing like a struck nerve.

  We didn’t fall.

  We were reeled in.

  Hard.

  My spirit slammed into my body with all the grace of a train wreck.

  Pain exploded in every nerve as my muscles seized. I gasped, choking on nothing, lungs clawing for air like they’d forgotten how to breathe. The snap of reconnection was instant and unforgiving—an electric storm under my skin.

  The world was loud. Too loud.

  Every sound—fabric rustling, someone shifting, the hum of a nearby lamp—pierced through me like sirens. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed both palms to the hardwood floor beneath me, forcing my body to remember gravity, breath, control.

  Beside me, Alec groaned—one arm braced against the coffee table, the other pressed to his chest like his soul was trying to claw its way out.

  A shadow loomed.

  Samuel.

  I lifted my head slowly. His green eyes met mine—hard, alert, asking questions he didn’t yet voice. Behind him, Samantha stood pale and tense, arms wrapped around herself like they were the only barrier between her and panic.

  Her honey-brown hair veiled most of her face, but her eyes...

  They asked the same question as the silence ringing in my ears.

  Where’s Jamey?

  Samuel’s voice was clipped, each word an effort. “Max. Alec. I know you must have seen what just happened. To Jamey. So, where the hell is he?”

  Alec didn’t hesitate. His voice came out flat. Final.

  “Taken.”

  It landed like a curse.

  Samantha barely breathed the next words. “Then we don’t have much time.”

  I met Alec’s gaze, and we didn’t need to speak. We never did.

  We were getting Jamey back.

  A stillness settled over the room—not calm. Not fear. Focus.

  This was no longer just a spirit hunt.

  This was war. And our brother was behind enemy lines.

  Alec's aura sparked. A slow, rising mist curled around his legs, threading upward in smoky coils. Inside it, threads of lightning danced, charging the air until it buzzed against my skin.

  My senses sharpened. My breath steadied. Strength roared back into my blood like a second heartbeat.

  Samuel. Samantha. “Release your shields!” I barked, already moving. “Stay grounded. Pray. Pray. Pray!”

  We were getting Jamey back.

  Or we weren’t coming back at all.

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  Each step up the stairs felt like moving through water thick with ash. The air pressed down on us, trying to shove us back. But we climbed.

  The house groaned, unwilling to yield.

  There had to be a tear—an opening where the entity had dragged Jamey through.

  At the top, I halted. Alec mirrored me. We scanned the hallway—nothing. Then his hand lifted, and lightning leapt from his fingertips, racing along the walls in crackling hunger.

  It surged left, struck the bathroom door, and erupted.

  Alec’s smile was all teeth. “Found it.”

  We stepped through the tear.

  The world shifted.

  Darkness enveloped us like tar—thick, cold, alive. It pressed into our lungs, seeped into our skin. This place wasn’t empty.

  It was watching.

  Huffing, puffing, and seconds from collapsing, I managed to spit out, “Honestly, if one more creep stares without buying me dinner first…”

  Alec shot me a look—just a flick of those pale eyes. Part amusement, part please don’t provoke the void right now.

  I grinned, just a little. Couldn’t help it.

  But we kept trudging forward.

  Each step bled strength—not just physically, but spiritually. The blackness didn’t just press against us—it drank from us. Like walking through a memory that wanted to erase us from it.

  My limbs grew heavy. Alec stumbled beside me, his glow flickering like a dying star.

  “Max...” he rasped. “I’m fading fast.”

  “I know. We left our shields.” I reached for my phone—it felt heavier than it should’ve, like the weight of this place clung to everything.

  I hit Samuel’s number.

  “Max?” His voice came through sharp, ready.

  “We need you,” I managed. Even speaking made my head spin.

  “We’re coming. Tell me how.”

  “I’m opening a portal.”

  “A what now...?” Samuel’s voice cracked, half disbelief, half panic. “You can do that?”

  I didn’t answer.

  I didn’t have to.

  I pressed my palm against the El-Rah mark. Light flared, searing gold patterns into the air. The space before us folded in on itself, spiraling, breaking open like cracked glass suspended midair.

  “Bingo.”

  I saw Samuel and Samantha through the breach, arms outstretched. I grabbed the edge of the rift and pulled.

  They crossed through.

  The moment they did, my knees gave out. Alec caught me as I collapsed, my vision going white at the edges.

  “Max, are you OK?” he murmured.

  “I’m fine,” I breathed. “Spiritually wrecked, but still cute.”

  Samuel didn’t wait. He slammed his palms together—light exploded, forming a radiant barrier around us. The darkness shrieked, recoiling like it had touched the sun.

  Samantha pressed both hands to our backs. Warmth surged through me—like stepping into breath again.

  I rolled my shoulders. “Thanks. I feel like a damn Energizer battery.”

  We pushed forward.

  The corridor widened. The air grew still.

  I felt it first. “Something’s ahead.”

  And then we saw it.

  At first, it looked like a wall—solid, towering, pulsing softly with a rhythm that almost mimicked breath. Not quite alive, but not dead either. Something in between.

  It didn't move.

  It scrutinized us, like it was trying to decide what to take next.

  The surface shifted ever so slightly, like thick tar stirred by a breeze that didn’t exist. Veins of black and violet rippled beneath its skin, and for a moment, I thought I saw it twitch—like it was trying not to react to our presence.

  Not a being.

  Not a barrier.

  Something claimed.

  In the spiritual realm, everything is woven together—walls, floors, air, breath. Here, space isn’t just space. It’s a battleground. It can be wielded. Possessed. Purified.

  Or corrupted.

  And this?

  This space had been steeped in something foul. Saturated.

  What we were seeing wasn’t the enemy.

  It was where the enemy had fed.

  And inside it—curled and still—was Luke.

  “Luke?” My voice cracked.

  What was he doing here?

  Luke, one of Eric’s strongest—his best prayer warrior. If he was trapped in this hell, then something had gone terribly wrong on Eric’s end.

  And Eric?

  Eric doesn’t make mistakes.

  He’s the kind of leader you build legends around—the one who steps into a room and makes angels sit up straighter. He doesn’t command with noise; he leads with certainty. You don’t question him—not because you’re afraid—but because you trust him. His presence alone could hold the line when everything else collapsed.

  But he wasn’t here now.

  And that shifted everything.

  Mandy once said Alec and I were meant to be together, but Alec never looked at me that way. Eric, though—he watched me differently. Like he expected more. Like he knew I wasn’t just capable… I was meant for more.

  But that was a thought for another day.

  Right now, one of his own was dying in front of us.

  Alec stepped forward, voice low. “We can’t leave him like this, so…”

  But he didn’t get to finish.

  The ground beneath me pulsed—faint at first, then rising like a breath held too long. Golden veins lit the floor in a web of light, and the Living Scripture stirred to life across my skin.

  Ancient text, not symbols, surfaced—flowing from my spine to my arms, across my shoulders, throat, and forehead. Not burned, not written—revealed.

  They moved with intent, not urgency. Decrees, not magic. Each line shifted into the next, elegant and deliberate, as if written by a hand older than time.

  Molten gold unraveled into the air, threading through the void like divine ink spilled into motion. The writings reached for Luke—not to bind him, but to rewrite him. Not with spells. With law. With truth.

  And reality, whether it liked it or not… began to bend.

  Behind me, I heard Samantha whisper something in a tongue I didn’t recognize—prayer, maybe, or awe given shape. Samuel took a step back—not in fear, but reverence. Even Alec, always composed, dimmed his glow slightly beside me… as if yielding space to something holier than both of us.

  And for the first time...

  Even the darkness hesitated.

  I poured everything into the connection—my name, my will, my very essence—like breathing life into someone on the edge of vanishing.

  Luke jerked violently, gasping as if dragged from the bottom of a deep, forgotten sea. His body convulsed once, then collapsed into the space between worlds.

  We had him.

  Then—

  Snap.

  A tendril slithered out from the wall—not quick, but certain. It moved like it had been waiting, patient and cruel. It curled around Luke’s neck with a sickening elegance, tightening with the slow finality of something reclaiming what it believes still belongs to it.

  Then, with a vicious pull, it yanked him backward.

  Not into shadow.

  Into itself.

  The wall pulsed, rippled… then sealed shut again. Smooth. Silent. As if it had never let him go at all.

  A chilling finality pressed into the space, thick and unbearable.

  My pulse thundered in my ears. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. My team’s eyes were on me—waiting.

  But I was frozen.

  Drained. Hollow.

  That’s all I felt.

  As if something sacred had been scooped out of me—and replaced with silence.

  The void consumed Luke in full.

  And this time...

  I didn’t see a way back.

  — — —

  ***Author’s Note:***

  Some losses echo in silence louder than a scream. Thank you for walking into the veil with me.

  — Mandy