Chapter 13: The White Maw

The shadow didn’t swallow. It stripped.

One second I was diving, hand locked with hers mine, hers and the next there was no air, no sky, no plateau bleeding underfoot. Just bone-white silence. A maw without teeth.

Weightless. Breathless.

And then the pain.

It wasn’t sharp. Not even familiar. It was peeling like someone had reached under my skin, hooked fingers in the meat of me, and started tugging. Every thought, every scar, every secret peeled raw.

The mirror woman jerked beside me. Or maybe I jerked. Our hands stayed welded. Blood had glued our palms, or maybe the shadow had. Hard to tell. Harder to care.

Her voice hit my skull, not my ears.

“This is where it takes.”

My jaw clenched. “It doesn’t get to.”

But it was already sifting through me. My father’s voice. My sister’s bracelet. Evelyn’s eyes in the muzzle-flash. Max’s smile, sharp as a blade, sitting in my chest like he’d always belonged there.

And beneath it all my laugh.

Twisted. Hollow. The echo that had followed me since the tanks. Louder now, threading through every vein.

The white stretched. No horizon. Just endless, suffocating clarity. Every direction looked the same. Every breath felt stolen.

I staggered forward. Or thought I did. Hard to tell in a place that had no floor. The mirror woman kept pace, her grip tight enough to break bones. Her eyes my eyes were fever-bright, pupils swallowing color.

“Where the hell are we?” I rasped.

She answered without looking at me. “Inside the debt.”

I wanted to hit her. Shake her. Anything to crack that flat delivery. But my arms hung heavy, strings pulled by someone else.

A sound rose in the white. Not a roar. Not even words. More like a crowd breathing in unison. Thousands, maybe millions. Each breath feeding the space. Feeding the shadow.

Shapes moved at the edges. Not clear. Smears of black in the glare. Faces, maybe. Or just my guilt, given form.

The mirror woman finally turned her head, jaw tight. “It wants the choice.”

My stomach flipped. Same damn script. Max had been right about that much. The shadow didn’t kill it forced bargains. Pitiful, impossible bargains.

“Choose what?” I snapped.

Her mouth curled in something like pity. “Which one of us stays.”

The laugh roared then. My laugh. Too loud. Too close. It rolled through the white until the marrow in my bones hummed with it.

I yanked my hand free. The glue blood, shadow, whatever tore like wet fabric. My palm burned, slick with something thicker than blood.

I squared my shoulders. “Then neither of us does.”

The mirror’s face hardened. She stepped closer, nose to nose, my breath colliding with hers. “You can’t run from it, Grace. Not here. Not anymore.”

She lifted her hand. My hand. Pressed it flat against my chest. Heat flared, not from her touch but from inside me. Something moving under my ribs. A second heartbeat. Off rhythm. Wrong.

I staggered back, gagging. My throat tasted of rust.

The white split. Just for a second. Like a curtain tearing. And behind it black water. Flood rising, swallowing everything. Evelyn’s scream. My sister’s hand reaching. Max’s grin wide enough to split his jaw.

I lunged toward it, but the rip sealed. White again. Endless.

The mirror woman was already watching me, calm as a corpse. “It’s bleeding through. They’re still out there. But not for long.”

“Then we get out.” My voice cracked.

She tilted her head. My tilt. “There is no out. Just the bargain.”

Something in me snapped. My fist flew before I thought. It caught her cheek with a crack, head whipping sideways. Blood bloomed on her lip.

She turned back slow, grin sharp. My grin. “Finally.”

Then she hit back.

The force rattled my skull. White exploded around me. We fell into each other like animals, fists, elbows, teeth. No ground but still we hit, still we hurt. Each strike landed twice once on her, once on me. My jaw throbbed. My ribs screamed. My blood sprayed the white, vanished before it hit anything.

The laugh never stopped.

We tore at each other until our arms shook, until our knuckles split, until the white itself seemed to pulse with our violence. And still no winner. Because how do you beat yourself?

She spat blood my blood then shoved me back. Her chest heaved, sweat slicking her skin. “It’s not about who’s stronger. It’s about who breaks first.”

My breath rasped. “Then you’re the one breaking.”

Her eyes burned. “No, Grace. You are.”

The white rippled again. Wider this time. The plateau bled through stone splitting, sky ripped open. My sister screaming my name. Evelyn firing at shadows. Max standing like a prophet in the carnage.

The mirror woman seized my arm, yanking me toward the rip. “One of us goes. One of us stays. If you don’t choose, the shadow will.”

I stared into her face. My face. Rage and fear carved into the same lines I’d worn for years.

And I knew she was right.

The white howled. The shadow’s laugh rose higher, sharper, until my teeth ached. The rip widened, the flood rushing closer, ready to drown us both.

My sister’s bracelet flashed in the vision. Tiny metal charms. A life she never asked to pay into this debt.

My throat tore with the words: “Then take me.”

The mirror’s eyes widened. My eyes. She shook her head once. “No.”

But the white buckled. The laugh cracked. The debt itself listened.

Her grip on my arm tightened, bruising. She leaned close, mouth at my ear, whisper raw. “Don’t you dare give it what it wants.”

Then she shoved me.

The rip swallowed me whole.

Impact.

Stone under my knees. The stink of iron. Screams. The roar of water chewing through the plateau.

I coughed, lungs burning, vision tearing in half. Evelyn’s face swam into view jaw tight, eyes blazing. My sister clung to her, both soaked, terror etched deep.

Max stood not far, arms still out, laughing like a man who’d just seen god spit in his mouth.

The plateau collapsed in chunks, blood spraying from cracks. The shadow loomed over all of it, taller than before, black mouth stretching across the sky.

And beside me nothing.

No mirror woman. No double. Just the echo of my laugh still rolling out of the dark.

I wiped blood from my mouth, staggered to my feet, and spat into the bleeding stone.

“I’m still here,” I said.

But the shadow’s grin my grin only widened.