Page 118 of Fool Me Twice

He was a cursebreaker.

But his eyes weren’t lying. The mirrors weren’t lying.

There was a curse on him.

And it wasn’t breakable.

“This won’t go away,” he whispered, and Cane tightened his arms around him. Hart couldn’t even see him standing behind him through the black.

“It will,” Cane said, his voice hard. “You will fight this. You will fucking win.”

“It’s so strong,” Hart said, raising his hands to grip the black tendril coiling around his neck. He tried prying it away, but it wasn’t budging.

“You’re stronger,” Cane said, wrapping his hands around Hart’s and pulling them away from his neck. He untied the ropes around them and placed something between his fingers.

“We all believe in you, sweetheart,” Cane said, and Hart looked down to find a photo of himself.

He looked nothing like the person in the mirror. It shook him to his core. He was so far gone that he didn’t even resemble himself anymore.

“I can’t.” Another sob tore through him, and he felt his knees give out.

Cane took some of his weight, lowering him to the floor and sitting behind him, letting Hart rest against him.

“I’m here,” Cane said. “I’ve got you. But you gotta fight this on your own, Hart.”

“It’s everywhere,” he said, running his hands all over himself, desperately trying to get the darkness to let him go.

“Then fucking make it go away,” Cane hissed, and Hart clutched the photo harder, his chest heaving with exertion.

He’d led hundreds of people through this exact same thing. Pointed them the right way to get the curse broken. Guided them through the pain and the fear and the darkness of it.

He was Hart. He was good at what he did. He was a Slatehollow cursebreaker, and he’d be fucking damned if this was how he went down.

He sat up straighter, his hand coming up as he slammed the photo against the mirror in front of him.

Two versions of himself stared back at him. And only one would win.

Hart braced himself against the backlash, focusing on the curse whirling around him in the mirror. He tracked the movement of it, followed it until he saw a pattern. The tendril closest to his mouth would coil away, before sharpening and rushing at him in the next second.

Hart allowed it for a few seconds, just watching, before finally making his move.

It speared again, attacking, and he focused on his reflection in the mirror, mind alert as he stopped it from touching him again. With laser focus, he cut its trajectory and forced it into the photo.

The scent of burning paper hit his nostrils as his image in the photo turned darker. The curse attached to the imprint of him, eating away at it. A memory of him.

Hart held on to the tendril, pulling at it as it struggled to get away. Inch by inch, he forced it into the photo. Ripping it away from his skin, tearing at it until it screamed in his ear.

Blood dripped from Hart’s nose and ears. His head was on fire.

It resisted.

It fought back.

It lashed out and gripped at his chest, his neck.

Hart gasped when he noticed it sneaking inside his body through his nose, his ears, his eyes. He tore into it, ripping at it, feeling like he was dismantling the very core of himself to get it all out.

He couldn’t afford to miss a single wisp of it. The tiniest sliver of it would grow back and destroy him in vengeance.

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