I stepped through the veil, my awareness appearing in the area first. Of all the places I’d instinctually think of as a return point… it was ironic. At a certain point, it was the one place I swore I’d never return. How many times have I returned since? I felt it was a kind of sanctuary for me now. I kept coming back to the factory. The barren, abandoned building sat on the forgotten edges of an older industrial area of St. Louis. Yet again… I had returned.

My physical presence slipped between the fracture in reality torn open by the power of Death. The instant my physical form hit the factory floor, I felt an explosion of power from my body. The power that allowed me to slip through the veil, and transition from the pits and the surface, was pure Death energy… authority… an essence of some kind. Whatever it was, I knew it had bathed the factory from top to bottom, spread through walls and solid objects like radiation through Chernobyl.

The factory was washed in the power that I had drawn from Death, and if anything was in the vicinity… they were now dead. My pulse shot out instinctively as soon as I knew the extent of the power that had slipped from my control. I sensed bodies but it was only of small creatures; a few birds, a squirrel hiding acorns in the walls, and all kinds of spiders fell from their webs after my arrival.

The weight of it hit me quickly. The sheer power at my disposal was on a scale so much greater than anything I had felt before… it was scary. The magnitude of destruction and death I could wreak on the world if I weren’t in control, was staggering. If I wanted to use the power I drew from the blade… it would be absolute… and it could slip further than intended. This was only transportation… what would happen if I welded my power intentionally trying to kill on the surface. The pits were a haven to unleash my new destruction. It was almost like a training ground of sorts… to get a taste of what was available. However, I knew I could not be so careless now that I was back in the living world.

I felt the blade's handle in my grip, the hum of power vibrating the knuckles wrapped around the otherworldly weapon. I let go of the handle and it faded from this world. It slipped back into the void, out of touch with the living world, still feeding the ever-hungry Primeval… me. We were one now. The rolling power of Death that coiled through the area like a fog began to slowly retreat. It faded from place, slowly vanishing out of this realm and into the other… with the blade and the rest of my form.

I looked down, and for the first time since I reappeared in the physical world, I realized I had no clothes on. I had been running around slaughtering butt-ass naked. I guess I just never thought about it, just feeling the new power of this body and the blade that had been given back to me. With all of that on my mind clothing was not a concern. But now as I stood in the real world, even hidden in the shadows of the factory I knew I needed something to cover myself. Luckily though, I knew of a certain crack in a wall where I had stored some things. A bit of a stockpile from past trips into the city for a spare wardrobe.

I took a long slow breath to calm my nerves. I wasn’t shaken from what had happened in the pits, or my new status in this new body, but the repercussions of it. I felt it now… the true difference. I was an extension of Death. I knew that we would all die one day. Everyone owed a death… there was no escaping it. The more I walked around the empty decrepit factory the more I realized how different I felt. I paced the dusty corridors examining the old forgotten equipment and machinery all in different stages of rust and decay. It mirrored my thoughts.

We all got here at different times… we were all fading from this world on different strides, aging and changing, the world taking more away from each of us. I saw the same machines in long rows. Different stations that performed the same task within this factory at one time. They all looked the same, just falling apart in different ways. The rust grew, spreading like cancer to claim more and more of the metallic surfaces with each passing year.

I saw one marching right near a wall that had crumbled away leaving the once solid bricks turned to chunks and dust on the factory floor. The opening in the wall allowed the elements in and doused this closest machine. The extra attention from the outside world had deteriorated this machine much further along than the rest. I stopped in the shadows, staring at the machine. It was in shambles, barely recognizable as what it once was. Only the similar pieces spread out around its tarnished base giving any hint that it was another one of these rusted statues, a brethren of this room.

We weren’t all meant to last the exact same, we had different lives… different paths that would lead us to the end. I understood that more now than I ever had. It was an understanding that came from this new conjoined existence with Myoordrakien. This Primeval body being fueled by the blade of Death. It let me see the truth.

I stayed in the factory for a while. If I was being honest… I was afraid to leave. I was scared of the consequences of my power and what I might do. I stayed in the abandoned structure and focused inward. I had to be sure I was ready to be around people in this new form and power. There was too much that could go wrong. The only companions I had while I remained here were the corpses of the things caught in the power of my arrival. Now, I was just as still as they were, frozen in death.

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It had been a few days… I think. I wasn’t too sure. I slipped in and out of conscious thought, exploring the depths of my new body and mind somewhere between dreams and memories of the Primeval. It was all vague and instinctual, nothing that read like a book or played like a movie. I did feel, however, that I had a more instinctual knowledge of what I was capable of. I felt more control over my body and every cell within it… a magnitude of physical form, unlike anything I could have ever imagined. Once I felt ready… I opened my eyes.

I focused on Autumn… and my pulse exploded. I felt my consciousness rip across the city, a faint echo of my true mind spreading out far and wide. But then, as soon as it found her, my mind was tuned to her with laser focus. She was alive… truly alive… strong. She was somewhere in the city, moving around between buildings downtown. I Could sense her direction, but I had a stray thought that made me stop my inspection of her using my pulse sense. I didn’t linger on her long, just happy that she was okay.

I focused my mind on Patrick… the mental pulse echoed out like a tidal wave, spreading out across the surface of the city. Nothing escaped its sense and investigative power. But… there was nothing. I knew it as absolute certainty. Patrick was dead.

I shifted between everyone: Carter, Eleanor, Martin, Frank, Jane, Clara, Wayland, and all the rest of the Wicklows. Everyone was alive… life forces strong and standing tall, allowing my pulse to pick them up instantly. My pulse ripped in waves across the city as I continued. Arthur… alive and healthy, somewhere close to Shelta.

Kayla… the pulse ripped out. She was alone. The ringing identification picked her up instantly. I sensed her general location easily as well. She was near the college, in Autumn’s dorm room. She was alone… but not alone. I sensed something strange about her life force. The pulse continued analyzing her with each wave, picking through the layers of her form. Her life was not her own anymore. Her roiling heat within her body, the essence I felt Myoordrakien give so much reverence towards was not like all the others. It was looping inwards. Twisting back on itself in a way set apart from all the others. Theirs was like a burning flame, whereas Kayla’s was a redirected flow of energy. Three looping spirals in her very soul fed something else.

It left me confused… oblivious to the nature of this oddity. But Myoordrakien himself made me aware.

“Offspring,” his thunderous voice grumbled in my mind.

I spoke out loud from within the darkness of the factory’s shadows. “She’s pregnant…”

I had a lot of questions about that. Who was the father? How far along was she? How long was I gone for?

Alex… I shifted focus. I pictured her red-haired, voluptuous form in my mind, and let the pulse shift my attention from the pregnant Kayla. As I figured, Alex was inside of her apartment. Her life force spoke differently than all the others I had felt. It held the same touch of Hunger that it had before. She still held the relic of her fallen Primeval inside her. It was just as Death said. Hunger was dead, but her power remained. I could sense that she held even more now than she had before my brutal demise. I needed to make sure she was okay. I could check on everyone else later. The threat of the other elders was still there, and if they dared make moves, Alex would be their first target.

I left the factory, walking with intent and direction as I made my way to Alex’s apartment. It was odd… walking through the world with this new power. Just my new physical body alone made everything feel different. I felt like a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode. If I shifted… truly shifted and brought forth the physical power that rested in the reservoir just outside of the living world… it would kill and destroy so many people. I looked around the city streets as I walked.

The city was no longer a winter wonderland. It had a warm and welcoming vibe that even the passing civilians wore on their faces. People were smiling at me, nodding as I passed them. Everyone seemed happy to be out and about, the creeping isolating winter was gone and the streets were packed again. The Primeval side of me was hidden and being fed by the blade, so I don’t think my monstrous aura was pressing down on any passersby.

Then, I thought of the blade. If I pulled that from its hidden existence in these jam-packed streets… if I used my new power… they’d all die. It wouldn’t be the destructive power of Myoordrakien… it would be the instant, claiming power of Death.

As I walked among them… I felt out of place. So much destruction and death was waiting behind me… behind one wrong move… one bad choice. It made me miss the days of old… when I just had to keep the monster at bay and direct him at targets. Now… I got to choose to feed him with the blade and keep that side of me contained, but knowledge of that power and all it could do… or undo… was staggering. It changed the way I saw this world… and myself.

I stood on the edge of Alex’s apartment balcony, scaling the side of the building in just a few leaps and handholds in the silent hours of the late afternoon. The sun still lingered above the horizon, but I knew that was not the reason Alex hid herself inside.

I slid the door open, unlocked per usual. The little roller wheels felt slightly more resistive like they’d picked up some grit in and around the inner wheels from the creeping winter. I stepped in and slid it closed behind me. I walked in, expecting Alex to bombard me with an attack like she always did. But it never came.

I could feel her heart beating steadily from her bedroom. She didn’t move, though I knew she’d heard me come in. Did she know it was me somehow? Last time she saw me I was being ripped to pieces. No… That didn’t seem right. Plus, the amount of time that had passed, surely she thought I was dead.

I stepped through her apartment and passed into her bedroom. There she was… lying on her side, staring into the small picture frame just as I knew she would be. She was staring into the face of the man she loved. The one who was stolen from her too long ago. I could see the picture, her and Jerry smiling and in love. It was a memory of another life… one I think Alex wanted back more than anything.

“Whoever you are… you fucked up coming in here,” Alex spoke without emotion. All of her attention was on her photograph. She had no care about intruders or threats. She just wanted to be left alone… to hang onto the memory of a former life. She seemed different… like something within her had changed.

“Alex,” I spoke calmly.

Her breathing slowed, and her pulse shifted. She turned over calmly and revealed her face to me. Her green eyes locked onto my blues and she had a look of someone who had just remembered something they forgot. “Sam…” she barely breathed out. She didn’t move at first, just looking at me from beneath her thin sheets.

After a moment of analyzing me, knowing that it was truly me, she got up quickly. Her sheet fell away and revealed she was wearing some kind of thin legging material and a white shirt. It looked like her comfy clothes like she had no intention of stepping out of this apartment for a long time.

“Sam…” was all she got out again as she closed the distance between us. She slammed her full weight into me as her enhanced Primeval power almost sent us through a wall. It wasn’t the same playful attack she had been greeting me with lately, no this was emotional. She was shakily emotional. “How are you back? I saw them… I saw what they did to you…” her eyes glazed over slightly when she pulled back. The memory of me being dismembered plaguing her mind again. She shook it off. “Where have you been all this time? Was it you that killed them?” her questions came in torrents.

I could feel her internal struggle against whatever it was she had been feeling… the things that kept her in this apartment staring into the picture like it was the only thing tethering her to this world anymore.

I pulled her back in close, not knowing how much I wanted this until I felt her body against mine. The closeness I felt to her at that moment brought a touch of humanity back into my body. The connection of… a friend. Someone I had bonded with so closely… so quickly in our internal struggles, through our shared connections to these Primeval entities. The sound of her breath… her heartbeat, her scent… it was an intoxicating cornucopia of ways for me to sense her. I could feel her presence… her life.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

We just stood there for a minute, and I could feel her shakiness fade away. I felt some of my own doubt and fear of this “new me” fade. Just feeling the closeness made it better. That said something to me. Something I would have to analyze later.

She pulled at me frantically, planting her feet and urging me back toward her bed. She gripped my face like she was clinging to a cliff, trying not to fall over the edge by holding onto me. She buried her face into mine and kissed me intently. She wouldn’t let me go… and part of me didn’t want her to.

I knew there was so much that would change… so much to figure out after scanning the city with my pulse sense and feeling these new changes. But… at that moment, I wanted something familiar. I wanted to feel the closeness we shared. I was afraid though, that if I told her about my new body… my new form, and the powers it bared… she would stop. I didn’t say a word. I just dove in without thinking. I just wanted… everything I could have in that moment.

I pulled her in tightly, stepping closer to her bed. I ran my fingers through her bloodred hair, cradling her head close to me as I lifted her in the air. I kissed her fiercely, tearing the thin material from her body with my free hands, trying to make sure there was nothing between us. She was strong enough to hold herself up on me as I carried our weight and pulled at her light clothing. No physical barriers that would put a single ounce of separation between us. I stomped over her twisted sheet as it lay beside her bed, smashing it to the floor. We didn’t need it.

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I felt relief… happiness that she was here. Alex was okay… and she made it back from our trip to the pits. Yet… there was something in her mind. I could sense it the moment the raging passion subsided, and we lay there together as I held her close. She had so many things in her mind, so many things that she wanted to say to me. Myoordrakien and I both could sense something in her that was so drastic that it changed her internal signature. Like her lifeforce itself had altered based on this decision.

“I did something Sam… something that… I’m ashamed of it,” Alex admitted. The way she said it felt like she was confessing a sin of an unforgivable nature. “I’m sorry… I didn’t know what else to do.” Her eyes began to swell with bloody tears as she stared into me, her vampiric nature still present through all the changes granted by the ancient power flowing through her.

I pulled her closer to me, feeling the separation growing between us. “What is it?” I asked, needing to know the depths of her thoughts. What was plaguing her mind?

She gritted her teeth and then slowly began. “The curse… Autumn and Patrick… I saw it. I saw it to the very end. Patrick… he’s…”

“He’s dead,” I acknowledged, remembering that his life force no longer existed.

“You know?” she asked, surprised. “How?”

“I can sense a lot of things… and as soon as I got back, I reached out with my senses and checked in on everyone. I saw that everyone was okay… alive. Except for Patrick.”

She had a lot of questions in her eyes, but quickly shrugged them off, “Oh. Did you sense Autumn?”

“I did,” I replied. “She seemed okay. I wanted to go check on all of them, but… I needed time… for myself.”

“After what happened down there?” Alex asked cautiously at the thought of my death and destruction.

I nodded, “A lot has changed. You wouldn’t believe it… but I’m an even bigger monster now than ever before.” I lightly chuckled at the brutal truth.

“Why didn’t you go to Autumn? You sensed she was alive, and Patrick was dead. Didn’t you realize the curse had probably been broken?” she stared into me.

“I figured…” I answered honestly… but carefully. I knew that we were in dangerous territory. I had so many things that I felt for Autumn… before all of this happened. But… life got complicated. As I tried to stay away and let her family figure out if something else was afoot, I had things to do. Death called for me… and Alex was here with me through it. We had found… something together… I couldn’t deny that. “But… I wanted to come to you first.”

Alex’s eyes got bigger, “For what?”

“Well… to see about everything that I missed… but mostly just to check on you,” I said honestly.

She closed her eyes and exhaled quietly. She shook her head with some kind of internal disgust.

“You shouldn’t worry about me. It’s Autumn who you should worry about…” she let it hang.

“Why do you say that?” I felt a nervous trickle run down my back.

“The curse… it took them both. Autumn did it… she killed Patrick… and then she died,” Alex said, leaving a brief pause in her words.

“But she’s alive… I felt that. I know she is.” I remembered the feeling I got, the return from the rippling pulse I sent out across the city.

“She is… now.” She took a fast breath she exhaled just as quickly, hyping herself up for the truth to be laid bare. “I knew the curse would claim them both. I watched every time as her family tried and failed to break it. Every attempt was just as weak as the last. But… even from the first attempt… I knew. It would never break.” Alex sat up, leaning against the headboard of her bed, the sheet that covered us spilling down to reveal her naked chest. She didn’t let it distract from her words.

I tried to not let it distract me, but I felt an adolescent urge to look every couple of seconds as she spoke. I knew the situation demanded a more mature mindset, but my internal urges and power made my mind primal. It was a challenge to not take in her beautiful form.

“I’ve heard a lot of stories from my time at Martin’s bar. Curses come in all kinds of forms, but they are all similar in one way. They’re like a cancer. They spread, reaching out far and wide, gripping every part of the cursed person’s life. Once it is set… it can seldom be undone. When I learned the specifics of Autumn and Patrick's curse… I knew I had to do something.” She looked ashamed as she spoke.

I reached out and grabbed her hand, “It's okay… just tell me.”

“I stayed the whole time, waiting for it to happen. I knew she was going to die… it was only a matter of time.”

I felt a knot in my throat grow tighter at her words.

“We were keeping her sedated, injecting her with a tranquilizer before the attempts to break the curse. I helped with the injections. And just before I hit her with it, I’d put some of my blood into the needle… every time. I was filling her full of my blood just in case what I feared happened. And… it did. They didn’t break the curse… the curse broke their family.”

“You put your blood into her?” I asked, unsure of the specifics.

“You’ve never heard the particulars of how to create a vampire, I assume?” Alex shifted.

I felt an ominous charge in the air at her words. I could see now what she was getting at. She knew Autumn wouldn’t survive it. She was certain that she would die. I just shook my head, answering her question but lost in thought at the ramifications of her words.

“You need to transfer blood. Just drinking from someone doesn’t do shit. You have to intentionally give them some of your blood to flow through their system for a minimum of a day. It will enable certain changes to be made… but then their heart has to stop. They have to die. The changes that the blood has made will allow the heart to start back up again after another day of sitting still. They cannot be drained of blood… there must be something to flow… even if it is a small amount. Their heart and vital organs need to be somewhat intact, except for the brain. The heart becomes the central force for survival. Almost everything else can be regenerated through time. Blunt-force trauma, snapping necks, electrocutions… these are some of the best methods for creating vampires… that’s what I hear… anyway. If a person loses any of these things before or during the day of stillness, it won't take. As long as you hit all the variables, they will return.”

“That’s what happened to you?” I asked, staring into her green eyes. I could see a scar there, something she tried to forget.

After a moment of staring into the darkness of her room, she answered, cold and detached as she drew from a memory. “The others lost so much blood… they tore too much of them apart. I was their… favorite. They were more careful with me.” I could see the pain on her face as she spoke from her darkest memories. “They didn’t know what they were doing. But they fed all of us their blood, trying to bolster their numbers. They killed the others too early, drank from them too much… took it too far… They got lucky with me… unlucky… I suppose.” She shook away the memories and redirected her gaze to me. “That’s not what happened with Autumn. I slipped her my blood… a lot. It had been circulating in her system for weeks, boosted every time her gypsy family tried another attempt at breaking the curse. She broke free with the earthquake… the same moment I got more of this Primeval power,” she turned her arm over back and forth in front of her. She could feel the violent hunger inside herself. “She killed Patrick with a knife… it was not pretty… scarring for some of them. They’ll never be the same after what they saw her do to him. Then… she died.”

It hit me like a punch in the face. However, I knew what was coming next… and it took away some of the sting.

“It took more than the usual day. She was out for longer. She laid in their basement for days… I told Martin what I had done… he was… angry. As was I… but I saw no other way. If I did nothing… she would have been taken from her family… just as I was taken from mine.” More tears of blood streamed down her face and then down between her breasts. She pulled her sheet up to cover herself at this point, wiping the blood tears away and covering herself from the increased vulnerability in this moment. “It was something I swore I would never do… I promised myself I would never put my own curse on someone else… I would die before I did it.” She looked disgusted with herself. I knew she had a hatred for what she was. She had told me so many times. We were monsters… she had tried to convince me of that so many times. I knew she thought the same thing in these moments when she confessed what she had done. Even if it was to save a girl marked for death.

She stopped talking and scooted further away from me on the bed. She looked away from me and stared into the picture on her bedside table. I left her alone for a moment. I didn’t know what to say to make any of it better. I didn’t even know what I felt about it at that moment. All I saw in that hard gut-wrenching moment was a woman who had everything taken from her: her innocence, her life, her friends, her family, and even her love… Jerry. It was all coming back to her in that moment in the darkness of her desolate bedroom. The lone picture sitting on the bedside table staring at us. The younger human version of Alex and Jerry staring into a room of monsters and brutal choices that could end or spare lives; those lines blurring in certain situations. This very one we spoke of.

It was hard to get the words out, but I felt Myoordrakien’s powerful will, and body combined to get me through the words. I had a lot of internal struggles happening at the thought of Autumn dying the way she described… but I had to be strong… for Alex.

“You did something… something no one else in that family could have done. Martin couldn’t have done it either. He’s not strong enough to see what you saw… to do what you did.” I scooted closer to her, leaning my back against the headboard as I sat beside her. I placed my hand on her face and pulled her head to look at me. Her green eyes were laced with bloody tears that swelled and spilled over silently in the most heartbreaking way. “Autumn’s life was stolen by Peter Grimwood. Her family’s lives would have been shattered without her. You may not see it yet… but if she is back… even as a vampire… she will still be here. Her mom and dad can still look at her and have time with her that they never would have gotten otherwise. What you did… you gave them a gift…” I put my forehead to hers and spoke quietly. “Without that gift… she’d be dead… gone forever. They would have no more time with her.”

“I still did it… I said I never would. I promised myself that I wouldn’t turn anyone. And now… I don’t even know what she’ll become…” Alex trailed off and thought internally.

I shifted myself on her bed beside her, pulling away from her face. “What do you mean?”

“She took too long to turn. After the first day passed, I waited… but nothing. I sensed changes within her… of a primeval nature. I think that…” Alex swallowed an unknown fear. “I think that she is turning into something… new. Something that hasn’t ever walked the earth before. She’s a child of an Anthropophagus Vampire… and the power of the Primeval of Hunger. I have so many opposing forces inside of me that I don’t know what it will have created… she’s out there, Sam. She’s out there and I don’t know what she is…”

We sat in silence for a while, and I noticed that the sun was starting to come up again.

“I have to go find her. We have to find her,” I told Alex. “Whatever she’s facing… we need to get her and bring her somewhere safe. Somewhere we can help her… isolate her from the urges until we can figure out her true nature.”

Alex didn’t say much, just staring at the sheets. “I’ve strayed so far from what I thought I was…” she shook her head. “You’ve given me something Sam. Something I never thought I’d have again. Something I thought I wouldn’t have until I joined Jerry in the next life.” She looked into the palms of her hands, “I can feel something you know… almost like… I can feel him reaching out to me… telling me it's okay. I couldn’t hear him at first… Hunger’s voice was too loud. But… ever since you killed her… she’s been quiet. She’s gone. Now… I can hear him, Sam. He’s even louder when you’re around.” She looked up to me, her beautiful emerald eyes, untouched now by the blood-fueled crying. “I’ve never been destined to live this long Sam. I was never supposed to be here… I should be an old woman right now… or dead in the ground.” Alex smiled to herself and laughed. “I should be in my mid-eighties.” She seemed like a flicker of happiness and joy filled her at the thought of being an old lady.

I started getting worried about her. She was talking in a way that made me fear for her mental state. What was she thinking… and could she really hear Jerry from the other side? How would that even be possible? Was it something about the Primeval power… or my connection to Death himself? I remembered when Annabelle finally passed, and she saw her long-dead husband. I knew it was Death in disguise, but Annabelle was convinced it was her husband, the love of her life ushering her into the beyond… to be with all the family she had lost.

“Alex… look at me.” I leaned in close to her, physically grabbing her face again. “Look… I know things are complicated… everything is all twisted up. But we have to find Autumn. We’ll get her, bring her back to the factory, and we’ll figure this out,” I said but I knew instantly that she wouldn’t be leaving her apartment. She had resigned herself to this place. To not leave the small picture frame of her and Jerry for a long while. She was going through something… and my words couldn’t help. “Just… stay here. I’m going to find Autumn, and well figure all of this out together… okay?”

Alex barely gave me a nod. Her eyes were sad and full of regret at what she’d done. She felt like a monster… even more so than she tried to convince me in past conversations. I couldn’t believe how wrong she was. How could she think that… after what she did for Autumn? It wasn’t perfect… but it was something no one else was giving her.

I leaned in and kissed her one last time, but it was one-sided. The passionate urges we shared were gone, and Alex was in a prison of her own making. She despised what she had done… who she was… and everything she was feeling in this dark life. It hurt me to see her this way, though I knew this was just the harsh side of everything I already knew… the things she was adamant about since we met. Our deep bond felt like a ghost of a past life in these hard strained moments. I just wished I knew what I was supposed to do… who I was supposed to be in these moments. If it was chaos, destruction, and death, I knew exactly who I was… and what I was meant for. But in this complicated life that Alex hated, I had no clue what to do. I just wanted Alex to be okay. To return to her usual self… but I knew that was not going to happen… not yet. This was going to take time. But I’d be here to help her.

I pulled my lips from hers and got up to get dressed. Then she closed her eyes and rolled over to her side. She stared into the picture again. Her breath fell into an even and steady pace and her heartbeat slowed. Staring into the memory of her and Jerry was the one thing that seemed to calm her. I was thankful for that.

I had to go find Autumn… to see what she truly had become. I needed to see her after letting so much slip through my grasp and allow her to be twisted and tormented by the curse and everything that was born from it. I had to find her… I had to make sure she was okay.

Before I left the room and vanished from Alex’s apartment, I turned and took one final long look at her. Her blood-red hair cascaded down the white sheets that covered her naked body. Bloody tears slowly oozed from her eyes, down the bridge of her nose, and passed her lips as she stared into the small photograph. I gritted my teeth, surprised at how much her grief was affecting me. I wanted her to be all right… to stop talking like she was. My relationship with Alex was something that came out of nowhere, but it was a powerful bond. I had to go find Autumn… so I could come back to Alex.

Things were beyond complicated.