Chapter Six: The Drowning
Evan's POV - Age 13
Two days later
The Day Lucas Died
Evan felt it the moment Lucas hit the water.
A snap. Like a rope pulled too tight finally breaking. It happened inside his chest, where the pact lived that invisible thread that had bound them together for a year, pulsing with shared heartbeat, shared breath, shared life.
And then Lucas was under, and the thread pulled tight.
Save him, the pact whispered. Jump. Go to him. Die together.
Evan's body moved without permission. One step toward the edge of the dock. Two.
But then another voice his own voice, small and terrified screamed louder. I don't want to die.
And he froze.
His hand reached out. His fingers stretched toward Lucas's desperate, grasping hand breaking the surface. Three inches apart. Two.
Jump, the pact commanded. The promise. We live together or not at all.
I don't want to die, Evan's soul screamed back.
And the pact that terrible, living thing they'd created on the black stone in the woods had to choose.
It chose.
Evan felt it sever. Felt the thread that bound them cut. Not gently. Not mercifully. It tore through him like a blade, and the pain was so immense he couldn't even scream. His hand, inches from Lucas's, might as well have been miles away.
He couldn't move forward.
The pact wouldn't let him.
Because if Evan saved Lucas now, the promise would break completely. And broken promises had consequences.
So Evan stood there, paralyzed, tears streaming down his face, watching his brother's hand claw at the air.
Watching it sink.
Watching it disappear.
I'm sorry, he tried to say. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..
But the words wouldn't come.
Lucas's eyes found his through the dark water. Wide. Terrified. Betrayed.
And then empty.
When the pact finally released him, Evan dove in. Searched frantically, his lungs burning, his vision blurring. But Lucas was already gone. Already cold.
Already dead.
They pulled Evan out first. Then Lucas.
Evan knelt on the dock and vomited lake water and bile and guilt.
And felt, for the first time, the terrible truth.
The pact hadn't died with Lucas.
It had just... changed.
We live together or not at all.
Lucas was dead.
So why could Evan still feel him?
Present day
Writers POV
Evan was brushing his teeth when the air shifted.
Not colder.
Heavier.
The kind of weight that pressed against your ribs and made breathing feel borrowed.
He looked up.
Lucas stood behind him in the mirror.
Same black hair. Same gray eyes. Same mouth.
But wrong.
His skin was leached of color, not pale but drowned pale like something left too long underwater. His lips were faintly blue. His eyes were darker than storm clouds, almost swallowing the whites whole.
And he wasn't breathing.
There was no fog on the glass.
No rise of his chest.
Just stillness.
Evan turned sharply.
The bathroom was empty.
Too empty.
The lights buzzed faintly overhead.
He looked back at the mirror.
Lucas was still there.
Smiling.
"Hello, brother."
The voice didn't echo in the room.
It echoed in Evan.
The toothbrush slipped from his fingers and clattered into the sink.
"You're not real," Evan whispered.
Lucas tilted his head slowly. The movement was wrong, too smooth, like a puppet with invisible strings.
"Aren't I?" His lips curved, but his eyes didn't. "You can see me. You can hear me." His expression softened in a way that hurt to look at. "You can feel me."
He pressed his palm to the mirror.
The glass frosted beneath it.
"We made a promise, Evan." His voice dropped, rough with something broken. "We live together or not at all." His gaze sharpened. "I died."
Silence filled the bathroom like water filling lungs.
"So now we're together… differently."
"You're dead."
Lucas's smile twitched.
"And yet," he whispered, "you left me there."
The words cracked something open inside Evan.
His legs gave out. He slid to the floor, his back hitting tile, cold seeping through his bones.
"Why?" Evan choked. "Why are you here?"
For a moment just a moment . Lucas looked like he used to.
Playful.
Bright.
Alive.
And that was worse.
"Because you let me drown."
The accusation was not screamed.
It was mourned.
"I tried.."
"Did you?" Lucas's voice sharpened, grief splintering into fury. The mirror darkened around him, like water rising. "You felt it, didn't you? The pact. Pulling you. Telling you to jump." His voice cracked. "I felt you hesitate."
Evan covered his ears.
"I didn't want to die!"
Lucas's face twisted not monstrous.
Heartbroken.
"I didn't want to die either," he whispered.
The bathroom lights flickered.
"I was so cold, Evan." His hands pressed harder against the glass, frost spidering outward. "I screamed for you. I thought you were coming. I thought you would choose me."
Evan sobbed openly now, chest heaving.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"I know." Lucas's voice turned quiet. Devastatingly gentle. "That's the worst part."
He leaned closer, his breath fogging the mirror now, though his chest still did not move.
"I don't blame you for wanting to live."
His smile returned.
And it was wrong.
"But the pact doesn't care what we want."
The mirror darkened completely behind him.
"We promised. Together or not at all."
His eyes gleamed not just hunger.
Grief.
Rage.
Abandonment.
"So here I am. Bound to you. Trapped in the space between. Unable to move on." His fingers scraped faintly against the glass. "Do you know what it feels like? To feel your heartbeat when I have none?"
"What do you want from me?" Evan whispered.
Lucas's expression shifted slowly into something terrifyingly intimate.
"Everything."
He leaned so close his forehead nearly touched the glass.
"Your breath when the air burns your lungs."
"Your warmth when the sun hits your skin."
"Your future."
His voice dropped to a broken murmur.
"I'm so cold, Evan."
His eyes turned fever-bright.
"So hungry."
Evan scrambled back until he hit the door.
"Stay away from me."
Lucas's smile widened fractured, aching.
"I can't."
He spread his arms.
"We're bound. Where you go, I go." His voice trembled with something dangerously close to longing. "What you feel, I taste. What you love…" His eyes sharpened. "I want."
"One day," he whispered, "I'll take it back."