Page 45 of Trick Me
Our reflections move in perfect synchronization, pressing their palms against the underside of the water’s surface. The pool ripples—finally, movement—but it’s wrong, moving upward like something is pushing from below.
“Look at you,” my reflection says, and her voice drips contempt like honey laced with cyanide. “Playing dress-up in someone else’s clothes, in someone else’s life. You think he actually wants you? You’re just convenient. Available. Here.”
“Shut up,” I whisper, but she keeps smirking.
“Without your gift, what are you? A mediocre employee with a dead houseplant collection and a ghost cat that isn’t even yours. Your parents used to call twice a year out of obligation—your birthday and Christmas, and even then they kept it under fiveminutes. Your best friend had to convince you to come tonight because you’d rather sit at home reading about other people’s lives than live your own.”
The words strike me in the chest like precisely aimed arrows, each one finding its mark in my softest spots.
“Face it,” she continues, her glow intensifying. “You’re background noise in everyone else’s story. The quirky friend. The weird girl who talks to dead people. Never the lead. Never the one who gets chosen.”
My gut hurts, and I’m going to be sick.
Beside me, Ash is as rigid as stone, and I hear his reflection speaking too, that grinding voice full of cruelty.
“Dead pack members because you were too weak to save them all. You carry their names like prayer beads—Eero, Astrid, Jens, Björn, Ingrid, Olaf, Mikael—but prayer won’t bring them back.”
Ash flinches at each name, his hand tightening on mine until it almost hurts.
“Your father was right,” his reflection continues. “You’re soft. Playing at being Alpha while real wolves die for your mistakes. The pack whispers about it when you’re not around. How many more have to die before they realize you’re not strong enough?”
“Enough!” Ash bellows, but his reflection laughs, making this horrible sound like bones breaking.
“Even now, you can’t protect her. You’re standingright there, and you can’t stop what’s coming. Just like with Mikael. Just like always. You’ll watch her die too, and add another name to your litany of failures.”
“I said, enough!” Ash roars, and the sound is barely human.
We stumble back from the pool simultaneously, breaking whatever hold it had on us. I’m breathing as if I’ve run through the woods, my chest heaving, heart hammering so hard I’m surprised it’s not visible through the dress. Ash is panting too, perspiration on his brow, and when he glances at me, there’s a wildness in his eyes that speaks of real fear.
“What the absolute fuck was that?” I gasp, bending over with my hands on my knees, trying not to vomit from the adrenaline surge. “Since when do reflections have opinions? Strong opinions? Rude ones? I didn’t sign up for therapy via aggressive water spirits.”
“Magic,” Ash says grimly, but his voice is shaky. “The kind that knows exactly where to twist the knife.”
“Yeah, well, magic can go fuck itself with a rusty spoon. Sideways. Twice.” I straighten up, still trembling, wrapping my arms around myself. “Something feels really wrong here. More wrong than the general wrongness we’ve been dealing with all night. This is advanced wrong.”
“It’s trying to break us,” he admits quietly. “Using our own fears against us.”
“Well, it’s doing a bang-up job. Five stars. Would recommend to enemies,” I say.
That’s when the parchment in Ash’s hand flares with heat, making him curse, which sounds like it involves gods and fish and possibly someone’s mother.
Words appear on the previously blank surface, writing themselves in what looks like liquid starlight:
To break the curse, speak your truth. Shed the lies that bind your soul. Only those who see themselves clearly can be free.
“Oh, good,” I say, voice dripping enough sarcasm to fill the pond of water. “Vague mystical instructions. My favorite. Why can’t magic ever just say ‘Push this button, curse broken, have a nice life’?”
“Because that wouldn’t be sufficiently traumatic,” Ash replies, staring at the words like they might rearrange themselves into something helpful if he glares hard enough.
The wolf in me is pacing, agitated, wanting resolution.
“We have to go back to the water,” Ash suggests, and I hate that he’s right.
“I know.” I take a breath that doesn’t quite fill my lungs, like the air here is too thin or too thick or too something. “But if my reflection starts talking about my houseplant graveyard again, I’m fightingher. I don’t care if she’s made of water. I’ll find a way.”
“I’ll help. We can take them together.”
“Deal!”
