Jeremy stood still in the middle of the night, on the roof of an abandoned building that used to be a railway warehouse. He gazed into the distance, where the city lights blurred into the mist. Something was wrong. He couldn't put it into words, but he felt… a shift. A trembling of energy that did not belong to this world.
He sensed her.
Julie.
He closed his eyes, and the air around him thickened, as if soaked with another dimension. Inside his body something was pulsing — an alien rhythm he did not know. His heart didn't beat faster, but as if… deeper. A deeper wave, an echo of something awakened in his blood.
And then he heard a voice.
Not Julie's. Not Rosalie's. Something ancient, rustling like wind through dry leaves.
— She has been marked.
Jeremy opened his eyes. A shadow moved near the wall, but when he looked — there was nothing. Only the night. And the echo in his mind.
— What have you done, Rosalie? — he whispered.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bookmark from his mother's diary. Alison's notes trembled under his fingers, as if the book itself wanted to say something. He opened it. A new page appeared. It wasn't there before.
"If your blood merges with the energy of the one who has been chosen… you may awaken something that cannot be undone."
Jeremy felt the air around him start to shimmer, as if reality was losing its sharpness.
He no longer had any doubts.
Julie was part of all this. And she had just become a target.
*
Julie sat on the floor in her room, back against the wall. Around her lay scattered notebooks, photos, and books that just this morning seemed part of a normal life. Now all of it felt alien. Distant. As if it belonged to someone else.
Something new flowed in her veins. She could feel it. Pulsating in her temples, fingertips, right in the center of her chest. She wasn't sure exactly what it was, but… it wasn't just adrenaline. It was something deeper. Something that couldn't be explained rationally.
In the mirror hanging opposite, she saw her reflection — seemingly the same, yet… not. Her eyes appeared darker. Deeper. In their pupils danced a faint shadow that hadn't been there before.
She touched her neck. Where Rosalie had placed her hand during the ritual, the skin felt cooler. As if beneath it, there was a second layer of something — not entirely human.
The night was restless. Since she came home, the light in her room flickered. Shadows lengthened too fast. And in her dreams…
She dreamed of a city, but not the one she knew. The streets were filled with smoke, the sky covered with swirling light. And Jeremy — Jeremy walked through it all like someone who knew the way. And he looked at her as if he had been searching for her for hundreds of years.
She woke up trembling. But her heart wasn't racing. It beat rhythmically. Strongly. Too strongly for a human.
She looked at her hands. In the dark, they seemed to glow. Softly, almost invisibly — as if beneath her skin hid a power just waiting for a signal.
Julie didn't tell anyone what had happened. She didn't dare. Not yet.
But she knew one thing.
Rosalie had changed her. And this was only the beginning.
*
Julie flinched as the door to her room opened with a quiet creak. She froze, not even able to reach for her phone or speak. Something inside whispered that this was not a threat. That it was… him.
Jeremy stood in the doorway. In the half-light, he looked different — a shadow fell across his cheeks, his hair was tousled, and his eyes… there was tension in his eyes. Unease. And something else — determination.
— Julie? — he asked softly, but his voice cut the silence like a blade. — I felt something. Something has changed.
She didn't answer immediately. She pressed harder against the wall and looked at him warily — not like at the boy whose kiss had set her heart ablaze, but like at someone who could see everything. Even what she did not understand herself.
— Rosalie was here — she confessed in a whisper, as if those words had the power to call her back. — I don't know what she did. But since then… everything has changed.
Jeremy stepped in slowly, as if afraid that one sudden move might scare her or… trigger something already pulsing within her. He knelt beside her, not touching — not yet. He looked into her eyes and saw the shadow. A spark that hadn't been there before.
— She left a mark on you — he said quietly. — I feel it. And I see it.
Julie swallowed, her voice trembling.
— I don't know who I am now…
Jeremy raised his hand and slowly, gently took her hand. Her skin was cool, but his touch was like an anchor — something familiar. Strong.
— You are Julie — he said with all certainty. — And if she tried to change you, I'll do everything to stop it. Or at least… so you're not alone in this.
For a moment they said nothing. They just looked at each other, and between them circulated an energy — quiet, magnetic. As if something that had always been between them had just found its way to the surface.
Julie looked away but didn't pull back her hand.
— I'm scared, Jeremy.
— Me too. But together… we don't have to give up.
Then, for the first time since the ritual… Julie smiled. Pale. But real.
*
Julie sat on the bed, wrapped in a thick sweater that smelled like home. Jeremy took a seat opposite her, on the floor, leaning back against a cabinet. There were few words between them, but the atmosphere slowly shifted. From trembling — to calm. From cold — to something warmer, gentler.
— When you touched my hand — Julie whispered — that… coldness inside me, it went away a little. Like you pushed it back.
Jeremy looked up at her.
— Maybe because it wasn't just a touch. Maybe it was something more. Maybe it always was.
Julie looked into his eyes, dark, filled with an emotion she hadn't been able to name before. And now… now she could feel it clearly. A feeling born of strangeness, pain, but also tenderness.
— Do you feel it? — she asked, barely breathing. — That… something connects us?
Jeremy nodded without hesitation.
— I felt it before I met you. In dreams. In visions. Like you were beside me. Like you already existed for me.
Julie turned away but smiled to herself, as if those words dissolved something tense in her heart.
— And I thought I just had messed-up dreams.
— Maybe we both did… but now it doesn't matter. Because you're not alone in this anymore.
Jeremy reached out to her, shy but sure. Julie hesitated for a fraction of a second, then placed her hand in his. Their fingers intertwined effortlessly. Naturally.
— Promise me one thing — she said quietly. — That if this… power, or curse, or whatever it is, starts taking me over — you won't let me get lost. Or disappear.
Jeremy didn't answer right away. He stood, sat down next to her on the bed, and slowly pulled her close, wrapping an arm around her. Julie drew in a breath, surprised, but didn't pull away. She nestled into him without a word, as if only there she could breathe calmly.
— I promise — he whispered, pressing his lips to her hair. — I won't let anything take you away. Neither Rosalie. Nor what she left inside you. Even if I have to pay with my own soul.
Julie closed her eyes. For the first time in a long time, she fell asleep without fearing what the night would bring.