Chapter 4

Mom charged up, shoving Marcus aside.

"New Year's second day, cursing who? My son's fine, sleeping! Stop scaremongering!"

"Zachary!" She lunged bedward, twisted my chilled cheek hard.

"Up! Hear me? What dead play! Embarrass me before guests?!"

Dad frowned in: "Zach, no nonsense! Rise!"

The eldest sister’s unease flickered and vanished. She averted her gaze, her voice cold: "Zachary, know your limits; don’t burden our parents."

Second's focus was on Marcus—she watched his face with growing panic, not mine.

But Marcus wasn't looking at any of them.

He was looking at me.

His hands, still trembling from touching my cold skin, now hovered over my body. Medical school dropout. Two years of pre-med before switching to business. Enough training to recognize what everyone in this room refused to see.

"Mrs. Thorne." His voice was dead steady. "This boy has no pulse. His lips are cyanotic. His body is in early rigor mortis."

The room went silent.

Mom's hand froze mid-reach. "That's... that's impossible. He was fine yesterday. He was throwing a tantrum—"

"People who are throwing tantrums," Marcus said slowly, "have a body temperature above freezing."

He turned to face the family clustered in the doorway. His eyes—those warm, friendly eyes that had been smiling over tea twenty minutes ago—were now flat and cold.

"How long has he been like this?"

Nobody answered.

"How. Long."

Third sister's voice came out paper-thin: "He was... like that... yesterday evening when we got home. We thought he was faking—"

"You thought a thirteen-year-old boy with a fever and a broken finger was faking being dead. For over twenty-four hours."

He pulled out his phone and dialed. "I need an ambulance and police at the Thorne residence. Yes, there's a deceased minor. Possible neglect."

Mom lunged for the phone. "What are you doing?! You can't—this is a family matter—"

Marcus held her at arm's length with one hand, the phone pressed to his ear with the other.

"A dead child is not a family matter, Mrs. Thorne. It's a crime scene."

Floating above, I watched Mom's mask crack in real time. The gracious hostess, the devoted mother—it peeled away like cheap paint, revealing something raw and ugly underneath.

Not grief.

Fear.

Not "my son is dead."

But "everyone will know."

Mr. Hale appeared in the doorway. He took one look at the bed, one look at his son's face, and then turned to Dad with an expression that could have frozen the sun.

"Edward." His voice was quiet. Deadly quiet. "What have you done to this child?"

Dad opened his mouth. No words came.

Mrs. Hale pushed past him, took one look at my body, and covered her mouth. Her eyes went to the shabby room—no carpet, no curtains, a bare bulb overhead. Then to the room next door, visible through the open hallway: Alex's room, with its gaming console, plush rug, string lights, and shelves of toys.

"Dear God," she whispered.

Downstairs, Alex sat alone on the sofa, clutching his Lego box, looking very small.

He didn't come upstairs. He didn't ask what happened.

He already knew.

I drifted down and hovered in front of him. His eyes—so bright, so innocent—stared straight through me.

On his wrist, the diamond watch caught the light. Grandma Lily's watch. My watch.

And on the same wrist, a bracelet with a tiny, empty slot where a magnet used to be.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

For the first time, Alex looked scared.

Not of the sirens. Not of the police.

Of the wheel that would never spin in his favor again.