Rosalie stood at the edge of the forest, where the light zone ended and the invisible boundary of her influence began. Her hand was clenched, nails digging into her skin. The surrounding air thickened, and the ground beneath her feet trembled slightly.
She felt it.
Jeremy was with her. With Julie.
The bond she was supposed to weaken had transformed into something stronger. Their energies, intertwined through dreams and memory, now resonated so clearly that for a moment Rosalie had to close her eyes to block the impulse of pure jealousy.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she whispered, her voice blending with the wind.
The fire she always carried inside trembled. Something inside her… was breaking.
Jealousy wasn't unfamiliar. But fear? That she hadn't expected.
She turned sharply, leaving behind a circle of withered plants — their life drained in a second by her rage.
She raised her hand and struck the air, slicing it as if with an invisible blade. Her gaze was empty, her voice sharp:
"If I wasn't enough as a shadow, I'll become the sun. I'll blind them. Both of them."
Dark, dense, not entirely material energy began to seep from her skin. She started invoking an old ritual — one meant to erase a memory, to uproot a feeling like a weed.
"Forget her, Jeremy." The whisper was already a prayer. "Forget, before the feeling grows stronger than all the hell within you."
And suddenly… she stopped.
Her gaze pierced the darkness, as if she saw something that brought an unexpected thought. A new strategy.
"Or… I'll let them love. Only to destroy it when it hurts the most."
She smiled. Pale. Dangerous.
***
Julie stood by the window of her room. She hadn't slept well for days. Even though Jeremy was close, even though she tried to trust the growing feeling between them — something inside her trembled. As if something lurking in the shadows disturbed her peace. But she didn't speak it aloud.
That night… something changed.
When she pulled back the curtain, she saw herself. Standing in the yard. With the same gaze. The same face. But… it wasn't her.
It was Rosalie.
She wasn't shouting. She wasn't casting spells. She was simply… watching. Silently. Smiling with what seemed like pity. And in that silence, something happened.
A voice echoed in Julie's mind. Quiet. Silky. Venomous.
"Does he really love you, or is he just saving himself from loneliness?"
Julie recoiled sharply. The voice vanished. Rosalie too. But the echo of those words remained.
In the following days, similar moments repeated. Gentle whispering, which didn't sound like her own thoughts. Doubts that came unexpectedly.
"If you weren't his weakness, would he even look at you?" — "You're just a human haven in his hell."
Rosalie did not strike physically. She didn't need violence.
She planted something worse: uncertainty.
With each day, Julie grew quieter, more withdrawn. Jeremy sensed it. Tried to reach her. But Rosalie was already there. In dreams. In reflections. In whispers.
For now, she did not intend to destroy Julie.
First, she wanted the girl… to fall apart on her own.
***
Julie sat on the bathroom floor. Only on the cold tiles did she feel truly real. Her hands were clasped, legs pulled close to her chin. The mirror above the sink had been covered with a towel for two days.
She couldn't look at her reflection.
Because sometimes she didn't see herself there.
She saw eyes that didn't belong to her. Calm, cold, as if they belonged to someone who had long forgotten what it meant to be human. And that voice… it no longer stayed silent as often.
"He needs you. But he doesn't love you." —
"If he had to choose… he would choose himself. Or her." —
"You are just a link. A shadow. A passage."
Julie didn't want to believe it. But it sounded like the truth. Too close to her own fears. Too accurate.
Sometimes she heard Rosalie, even when she wasn't sleeping.
Sometimes she felt someone following her step by step. The shadow she cast seemed longer, unnatural. Movements in the mirror were delayed. Too independent.
And there was one more detail.
On her shoulder, just beneath the skin, a dark streak began to appear, like a trace of a touch she didn't remember. Delicate, like a branded mark. But it didn't hurt.
It wasn't pain.
It was possession.
She began to understand that Rosalie didn't want to kill her.
She wanted to become her.
***
Julie stopped sleeping.
Not because she didn't want to — but every minute with closed eyes brought dreams so intense, so tangible, that over time she wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't.
In one, she saw herself sitting at a desk… but she wasn't herself. Her movements were too calm, too precise. She smiled faintly, resting her chin on her hand, and in the back of her mind she knew she wasn't thinking her own thoughts. It was someone else — using her body like a puppet.
Rosalie.
In the morning, she woke up in the same position. Fingers clenched, a scratched mark from a nail on a piece of paper — a circle with a symbol resembling an inverted crescent moon.
She didn't remember drawing it.
She still avoided mirrors. But now she felt something was changing. Not just in her body. In her soul, there was less space. As if Rosalie… was pushing through, taking up more and more room each day.
Words that once seemed foreign now sounded like her own thoughts.
"Jeremy is too powerful. Too deeply rooted. But you… you are the bridge. And if he loves you, then I… will reclaim what is rightfully mine."
Julie had moments when she wasn't sure if she was speaking aloud or just hearing an echo of an inner voice.
Once, she found herself under Jeremy's house — not remembering how she got there. She stood in the shadow of a tree, watching the light in his window, and… she smiled.
But it wasn't her smile.
She was beginning to lose the boundaries between herself and her.
The boundaries she was supposed to guard.
And yet… something about it strangely attracted her.
She felt stronger. Braver. As if every spark of Rosalie inside her gave her more control, not less.
It wasn't just possession.
It was transformation.
***
Jeremy sat on the roof of an old warehouse, fingers brushing over cracked metal sheets, as if they could reveal answers. The night was heavy, suffocating. The air brought no relief, only tension he couldn't name. He had felt it for days — a restlessness in his soul, as if something was off. As if something was unraveling in the very structure of his world.
He closed his eyes. Tried to reach Julie through their connection.
Until now, it had been like warm light in the darkness. Always present. Gentle.
But now…
Now it was like fog mixed with shards of glass. He felt her presence, but distorted. As if her voice inside him was… muffled.
Julie?
No answer. Only unnatural noise. Twisting into something cold, alien.
His fingers trembled. He bent forward, resting his forehead on his knees.
"She is different. Something… something is changing in her," he murmured. "And I don't know how to stop her."
A thought appeared in his mind. Intrusive. Unwanted.
Rosalie.
He clenched his fists, and the roof beneath him trembled, as if the earth shared his anger.
He didn't have proof yet. No visions. But his power — his legacy — reacted like a beast growling at the shadow of a predator.
He could wait no longer. He had to see her. Look into her eyes. Touch her soul. Because if Rosalie had really found a way to nest inside Julie…
…he wouldn't just lose her.
He would lose himself.