He licks his lips and catches the white strands of my hair between his fingers. “We can do whatever we want,” he says, his tone suggestive.

“We can,” I agree as I bring a hand between us and slip my fingers down the sculpted ridges of his chest. “But first…maybe we can get lost for a few hours,” I say, earning another rough groan from him.

“Fuck, sweetness.” A devious glint flashes amid the flinty shadows of his eyes before his lips crash against mine.

He hauls me up against his strong body and carries me toward the hood of the car, where he doesn’t waste time stripping me of my clothes.

As he removes my shirt, I glimpse the fresh tattoo on my forearm, the verse that reads: The alchemy of the soul is transforming pain into creative genius.

I once told Kallum that he was the philosopher I wanted branded on my body, and now I have his words inked into the scar tissue.

Out of all the beautiful things he’s said, I chose this because of what it means to me, of what it reminds me. When Kallum said this our first day on the case, at the time, his blurt felt random, but I can now see how his mind drew the conclusion.

Kallum took my pain, all of my anguish and heartsickness, all the broken pieces of me, and transformed the darkest parts of my soul into a ghastly masterpiece.

During those early moments, I was too consumed with the case, and honestly, with him, to see the signs clearly. I questioned Kallum’s mental health many times throughout the course of the case, wondering if it was a performance.

Trying to diagnose Kallum Locke is like trying to fathom quantum theory—a topic he insists on sadistically torturing me with. One of the leading psychiatrists in the country was unable to establish a diagnosis, when he told me that I’d have to do so myself.

Dr. Torres said that Kallum’s violent tendencies were made worse by his obsession, but it’s in his obsession where the treatment lies.

Just as Kallum looks to synchronistic symbolism to guide him, I’ve been linking the signs. Like how on that very first day Kallum was displaying the marks of psychosis and an affective disorder.

At that point, he had spent six months apart from me. As we grew closer during the case, those moments of delusion and chaotic bursts of mania happened less frequently.

I touch my ring, thinking about the ouroboros. To the ancients, pharmakon was both poison and cure. The snake’s venom is where we derive its antidote. In the same way, as Kallum’s obsession is the root of his psychosis, it’s also what keeps him tethered to sanity.

The remedy to the mental illness is in the ailment itself, the very heart of the problem, his obsession with his muse.

And I’ll always be with him to counterbalance the frenzy with grounding logic and reason.

Because I don’t just crave his maddening, fiery passion—I need it. I need him. I am so utterly, fervently in love with Kallum that it can frighten me, the fear I have of losing him. When I think about those terrifying, endless seconds on the dam with Emmons, where I thought Kallum was gone, and the violent force that tore through me as a result…

I am the fucking abyss.

And I refuse to lose him to any monster, outward or within. The demons that threaten to annihilate his mind will discover how dark my shadow can become, how fiercely I will fight to protect the man who is branded into my flesh and my soul.

All the philosophers had their elements. Heraclitus, fire. Thales, water. If there can be only one element argued to belong to Kallum Locke, a chaoist at heart, it would have to be aether.

The prima materia, the dark matter of the universe. The chaos of the soul.

As he deepens the kiss, his hand settles over my belly. Being consumed by him, I unlink my arms from around his neck and touch the crescent concealed beneath his crisp dress shirt.

In another lifetime, maybe we wouldn’t have had to wade through hell to be together, and Kallum wouldn’t have to walk a tightrope over an abyss of insanity, or I’d have no fear of falling too far into the void.

Our love story is bittersweet, saturated with heartache and loss, sacrifice and all that we strive to give to each other.

But as Kallum said, our story can be beautiful here, too. Because we have pain, we can have pleasure. Because of the darkness, there is light. There is so much loveliness beneath the shadows when we let our eyes adapt to the darkness.

As he fills me wholly, completely, leaving no room for those fears in this moment, I know that whatever the universe has in store for us beyond this point we’ll face it together.

A thousand love stories told through the ages and one moral endures:

The darkest love kindles the brightest hope.

We could be a romance, or a tragedy. But that depends on where you pause the story.

In life, there is no such thing as a happily ever after. There’s a sad moment. Pain. Struggle. Then a brief moment of pleasure and contentment. Maybe even happiness. But the credits don’t roll. The story keeps going. So there’s more sadness, more pain. More struggles and pleasure.

Until the story just…

Stops.

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EPILOGUE

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WHAT IF

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KALLUM

The brightest little pixie laugh captures my attention to stop me in my tracks.

Sheltered under the eaves of the quad, I remove my hand from my pocket and touch my chest at the sudden, foreign ache. I then turn in search for the source—and there she is, the most exquisite creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Wittgenstein wrote: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.

He spoke on this in reference to negative theology, when what we experience is too ineffable to define, only a fool would make an attempt to put it into words.

And I would have to be a fool to try to define this rapturous rush that overpowers me.

As I make a study of her from my secluded corner, the chorus from Media Vita in Morte Sumus spills into my head, and suddenly, I know without fail I’m a devil who’s stumbled into heaven.

She throws her head back and laughs, and I’m slammed with a cyclone of emotions—all of them, every goddamn emotion she has ever felt and will ever feel crashes into me.

It feels like a heart attack.

Yet it’s the bittersweet melancholy steeped in honeysuckle and clove, an ache so euphoric it nearly drops me to my knees, that holds me bound, fearful of walking away from her.

I don’t just want to take my next breath, I crave it like a wasteland craves rain.

This angel has washed up on my shores of despair, and my heart beats for the first fucking time. God, it’s painful, but I’ve never felt so fucking alive.

Her long waves pulled back into a low ponytail, she nibbles her lip. Tucks the escaping strand of white behind her ear. So docile, yet so fucking sexy, I have the uncontrollable desire to devour her all at once—every last sinful drop.

As if she senses my predatory gaze, she looks my way and our eyes connect. I’m speared right through my sternum by the prettiest shade of hazel. Her mouth parts as I offer her a lopsided smile, and it only lasts a moment, but I swear I feel her delicious shiver roll through me.

She returns her attention to the man and woman, and I make an educated guess that these are her parents. The woman shares a hereditary trait; the same vein of white streaked through her dark hair.

I watch as the couple walk off, leaving my prey all alone.

Taking one determined step toward her, I immediately halt when I spot the diamond ring on her finger. She’s twisting the band, her expression shifting from a captivating smile to a tight frown.