Julie sat in silence for a moment, as if listening to something only she could hear. Jeremy waited but didn't ask any questions. He saw the battle raging inside her — deep, personal, and private. And he knew he couldn't be part of it.
"I don't want you to try to take it off me," she finally said.
It surprised him. He leaned in, trying to understand.
"Julie, this could be dangerous. It could… destroy you."
"I know. But I have to carry it." — She lifted her gaze to him. — "I was the target of Rosalie. I am the link she tried to open. And if I'm to have any influence over what comes next… I have to learn to live with what she left me."
Jeremy wanted to deny it. To tell her she didn't have to prove anything. That it was his world, his fight, and she should stay on the other side. But he couldn't. Because he knew Julie was no longer just an "ordinary girl."
She carried something inside her. Something she didn't yet understand but that mattered.
"If you fall…" he whispered, struggling to control the tremor in his voice — "I'll be beside you. But I won't carry you. I can't do that."
Julie nodded.
"I know. And thank you for understanding that."
Their fingers intertwined in silence.
And inside Julie… the whisper stopped for a moment. As if the darkness was watching her with curiosity.
It hadn't taken over her. Not yet.
But it was already waiting for the first step.
*
Julie woke up drenched in sweat. Her shirt clung to her skin, and her hands trembled as if she had just been pulled from deep water. For a moment, she stared at the ceiling, feeling… something. A weight that hadn't been there before.
She was no longer herself. Not completely.
When she went downstairs, she noticed the first change — the cross hanging in the kitchen tilted by itself the moment she crossed the threshold. Her mother didn't notice, but Julie froze.
The next day — the clocks. All the clocks in the house were thirteen minutes slow. Exactly thirteen. And only when she was alone.
But the worst was the mirror.
She stood in front of it in the morning, fixing her hair, when she noticed a shadow — not her own, but as if someone was standing behind her. She turned sharply. The room was empty. But when she looked again, the shadow vanished… and in her reflection, for a split second, eyes of a different color flashed. Golden.
Golden, like Rosalie's.
*
Julie sat in the school library. The silence was suffocating, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Every page she turned seemed unnaturally loud. Yet it wasn't the sound that disturbed her. It was something under her skin. As if her own body no longer belonged just to her.
In the corner of her eye, a shadow appeared. Like the shadow of a bookshelf. Like just a shift of light.
But it moved.
Julie froze, clutching the edge of the desk. Her heart raced, and a whisper appeared in her mind. Barely audible, quiet, feminine… and familiar.
"'Are you beginning to understand?'"
Julie's breath quickened. She turned around, but her eyes met only empty space between the shelves. No one was there.
When she looked at her hands, they trembled. They looked more like someone else's hands — the skin was colder, the nails longer, slightly elongated… sharper?
She blinked. The image returned to normal.
But it was no longer a coincidence.
Julie ran and locked herself in the bathroom. The water dripped from the tap, echoing against the tiles, but she didn't dare look in the mirror. She felt a pulse at the nape of her neck. A weight in her chest. As if something inside was pressing outward, trying to break free.
Finally, she lifted her head.
The mirror didn't lie.
Her pupils were unnaturally dilated — dark, absorbing light. Around them, a shadow appeared, as if the shadow of wings spread behind her. But when she blinked, everything vanished. Almost.
"It's just a dream. Maybe I ate something. Maybe I'm stressed." — she whispered to herself, trying to calm down. But she knew it wasn't stress.
She bent over the sink and washed her face with ice-cold water. When she straightened up, she noticed something new.
On her collarbone, just above the shirt line… there was a mark. Thin as a scratch, but too regular. As if someone had burned a symbol into her skin. A circle with a line through the middle. It pulsed faintly, quietly… like an echo.
Her body no longer belonged only to her.
*
Julie lay in bed, but sleep wouldn't come. The mark on her collarbone burned, as if the skin beneath tried to heal, but something wouldn't let it. She wrapped herself in a blanket, closing her eyes, but then… she heard a whisper.
Not a voice.
A whisper inside her head.
"You're no longer yourself, Julie. And you know it."
She froze.
"Who…?"
She didn't need to finish the question. Cold pierced her spine. A shadow, without a light source, slid down the wall of her room, as if it spread from the ceiling and stopped in the corner. Where the darkness reigned — too dense for an ordinary night.
"Rosalie…" Julie whispered.
The girl emerged from the shadow. She had no body — not fully. Her figure was like smoke and light, translucent but present. Black eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
"You're finally waking up. I feared you'd be another mistake of fate. But no… you are more precious than I thought." — Rosalie knelt by Julie's bed, though she touched nothing. — "You feel it, don't you? How it flows in your blood?"
"What have you done to me?" Julie whispered. She had no strength to scream. The fear was too real.
"It wasn't me who did this to you, Julie. It was you… who accepted it. Your body invited me. Your dream. Your shadow." — Rosalie smiled coldly. — "But don't worry. With time, you'll learn to use it. And when Jeremy fully trusts you… then you'll spread your wings."
"He'll find out about me," Julie whispered, not knowing if it was a threat or a plea.
"Let him. But not yet. First, show me you can be more than just a human girl." — Rosalie moved even closer, her figure almost touching Julie. — "Don't stand in my way. Or I'll teach you how to survive when everyone else stops recognizing you."
And she vanished. Simply — dissolved into the air like a shadow under the sun.
Julie struggled to catch her breath. She was alone. But she didn't feel lonely.
Because something — someone — had stayed inside her.