I woke gasping, sheets twisted around me, heart hammering like it was trying to escape my chest. Rain still streaked down the window, tapping in a rhythm that felt like a countdown. Emmy was safe. I had seen it with my own eyes. She had coughed, moved, breathed. Alive.
And yet… something in my chest felt wrong. Heavy. Cold. Like the air itself had gotten thicker while I slept.
The parchment was still on my bedside table. My name scrawled neatly at the bottom. My signature. My consent. My soul.
I didn't remember signing it. I didn't remember thinking about eternity. I didn't even remember thinking at all. Just panic. Desperation. The raw need to save Emmy. That was it.
I swallowed hard, trying to force my mind to work. To think. To understand. But all I could feel was the echo of a voice, calm, terrifying, precise.
"Everything has a price, Zara Morrigan."
I jumped back, clutching the sheets. The memory of the figure in black came unbidden: the perfect suit, the dark eyes, the faint smirk. That calm certainty. He hadn't moved like humans move. He hadn't needed to. Everything had obeyed him: the rain, the streetlights, the frozen night.
I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the parchment. A wave of nausea rolled through me. I had traded something I couldn't even name for something I couldn't let go of.
I thought of Emmy, curled up in the other room, sleeping. Seventeen years old, unaware of the price I had just agreed to pay.
And then the words hit me, cold and precise: I had given the Devil my soul.
My hands trembled. I wanted to scream. To rip the parchment apart. To throw it in the fire, the trash, anywhere it couldn't reach me. But I knew. I knew it didn't matter.
The door creaked. I spun around. No one. Only shadows stretching in the dim morning light.
I sank back into the sheets, mind spinning. The court. The Devil. The contract. The words "breach of infernal contract" from some nightmare courtroom… Was that real? Or just a dream?
It didn't matter. Because I knew, deep down, it had already begun.
I could feel it in my chest, a pull, a pressure. Not like fear alone. Something heavier. Like the air was waiting for me to realize the truth: I had no control now. None at all.
I closed my eyes, trying to breathe, trying to think. And then it hit me the memory I had been blocking, the one I hadn't dared touch. The street. The rain. Emmy. The car. The shriek. My own hands shaking as I reached for… the contract.
I remembered signing it.
Not fully consciously, not rationally, not even willingly in the normal sense. But in that frozen, desperate moment, I had agreed.
My soul was bound.
The weight of it settled in my chest like a stone, pressing down harder and harder with every heartbeat. I could almost hear a ticking, faint but insistent, counting down to something I couldn't stop.
And then, the flash.
I was back on the street in the rain. Time had slowed. Everything held in a suspended second. The Devil was there, dark and calm, holding the parchment. My hand reached for it, trembling. I remembered the terror. I remembered the desperation. I remembered the need to save Emmy, and nothing else mattered.
I shook violently, trying to force the memory out, but it clung.
And I realized something worse than fear.
It wasn't just that I had signed.
It was that the contract was real. And the Devil didn't make mistakes.
I thought of the courtroom. The faceless judge. The voice that had boomed at me, accusing me of breach, commanding me to prove a life's worth.
I had been too young. Too human. Too desperate. And now… I was being held accountable.
The reality hit me: the Devil wasn't done with me. He never was. And the contract… it wasn't just a piece of paper. It was a binding, living thing. Waiting. Watching. Growing stronger with every heartbeat I spent alive.
I needed answers. I needed a plan. I needed… anything that could save me.
But I had nothing. Not yet.
I thought of Emmy again. Sleeping, blissfully unaware, innocent. And that innocence made my chest ache. Every thought I had, every plan, every desperate idea to break free, was anchored to her. If she had never been there, if she had never been in danger… I would have walked away. I would have ignored it.
But she had been there. And I had acted.
And now… I had to pay.
A sudden chill ran down my spine. Something moved behind me. Not a shadow, not a trick of the light, but the unmistakable feeling of being watched.
I spun around. Empty room. My breath came fast. My chest heaved. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the Devil was there, somewhere, waiting. Always waiting.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I grabbed it. A message I hadn't sent. A text I hadn't typed.
"Zara Morrigan. We'll see you soon."
No number. No sender. Just the words.
I dropped the phone, my hands trembling. That was no prank. That was no glitch. That was him.
And suddenly, it all made sense.
The courtroom. The contract. The countdown. The weight pressing in my chest.
I had been chosen. The Devil had marked me. And now, the real test was beginning.
I sat in the dark, rain still tapping against the window, trying to breathe. Trying to think. Trying to prepare. But no matter how much I tried, I knew the truth: I was already trapped.
And the nightmare hadn't even begun.