Chapter 28 · The Last Death Line

"You can't close it without blood." Mara's voice came from everywhere, the walls bleeding sound. "Someone has to finish the line."

I stood in the center of what used to be the living room. The floor had split open, showing raw earth underneath, black and wet like something had been rotting there for decades. The house was collapsing inward, but it wasn't falling. It was *waiting*.

"Then I'll finish it." I pulled the knife from my pocket. The one Daniel had given me three chapters ago, the one he said could cut through a pact if you knew where to press. "But not the way you want."

"Leah, don't." Daniel grabbed my wrist. His fingers were ice cold. "You don't know what happens if you—"

"I know what happens if I don't." I twisted free. "Elsie's in the basement with her throat marked. Mara's stuck halfway between dead and worse. And you—" I looked at him, really looked, and saw the gray creeping up his neck, the same gray I'd seen on every body the house had finished with. "You're already halfway gone."

He didn't deny it.

"So tell me the truth." I held the knife up between us.