Without a word, he pulls me into the toilet where he blasts the cold tap and slips my hands under the water. I don't catch my sigh of relief. It fogs in front of me.

Nicolás positions me so that the water beats my wrists and cascades gently to the burns. Once he's confident that I'll keep them there myself, he digs out his phone to set a timer for twenty minutes.

He's holding a knife. A bone. Then it's his phone again.

'D'you wanna go to hospital?'

I roll my eyes. In the mirror, my eyes glow in black holes. 'I'm fine.'

'Are you okay everywhere else?'

I hum. It fails to convince him. 'Yes.'

Nicolás keeps watching me like he's contemplating asking me to strip so he can check the rest of my body but eventually takes my word for it.

My hoodie is wet, the hem darker than the rest of it. The water climbs up the fabric and I look down to check that it's not caught under the tap but it's not even touching the basin.

Eyebrows scrunched, I lift my gaze and I flinch. It's blood. And it's everywhere. Like I've bathed in it.

(–REDREDREDREDRED–)

It's not mine. Somehow I know it's not mine.

You did it wrong, Beewolf explains. I told you everyone will die if you do it wrong. Now everyone is dead and it's your fault.

'Look,' Nicolás says.

I am looking. What the fuck does he think I'm doing?

Beewolf takes flight and I watch it land on his shoulder.

This is not Nicolás. It's someone else. It's not Nicolás. He's already dead. They've killed him. It's your fault.

'I know the locks make you feel safe—and I want you to feel safe here, but... it makes me–' the quiver in his voice comes from the spine '–really scared.'

'I'm fine.'

'Cece...'

Unable to finish, Nicolás leaves his lips parted and Beewolf crawls into his mouth. He don't seem to feel owt as he fetches a packet of paracetamol and antiseptic cream.

His left eye twitches. It bulges. Until it bursts out of the socket, hangs from the optic nerve, and Beewolf crawls out.

It's not real.

I focus on my breathing, focus on the cool water running over my hands. That is real. Focus on that. That is real. Beewolf is not real. The blood is not real.

But my reflection starts to crawl out of the mirror.

I stumble over my own feet as I bolt back to my room. 'It's only been seven minutes,' Nicolás calls after me.

I ignore him, upturning my bag over my bed until I shake a notebook out. I throw it open, grab a pen. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real, I recite as I scratch the image onto the page.

Nicolás hurries after me, another set of crawled hands and feet behind him.

The evil. It's not dead. It's going to get back in.

I'm gonna vomit my heart out. I beg myself not to look, just focus on the drawing, but I can't help it.

My reflection crawls in from the daylight hall behind him, limbs twisted in directions they shouldn't. It has too many bones, too many joints.

That's you.

My fingers ache, the burns on my skin combusting into fresh flames, but I draw as fast as I can.

'Please go away.'

He needs to leave. He needs to lock it in here with me so it can't hurt him.

'Please go away.'

'Just let me help.'

'Please go away.'

You did it wrong. You counted wrong and now you're more evil than ever.

'Okay,' Nicolás sighs. 'I'm gonna leave the burn cream here, put it on when you can. I'd really appreciate it if you don't lock the door.'

Silence.

'Okay... I love you.'

The door shuts. I'm plunged into darkness while the evil grips the edge of my bed with far too many fingers. I keep drawing without turning on a light.

            'Nikki, they'll be okay,' Caleb says in Nicolás's phone. 'You have to take care of yourself too. Have a nice cup of tea, oil your scalp, dust your plants. Do summat that'll make you feel better.

'Tomorrow's a new day. Maybe you could visit Shayna and Desmond. Or my mums. They miss you. Every time I talk to them, they ask when you'll go round.'

Nicolás hums. With him lying on the sofa, I can't see his face from the living room doorway, but he oozes with pain the way he tends to. It gathers on him like translucent slime that he can barely breathe through.

Another voice echoes in the phone and Caleb's focus moves to summat behind the camera. 'I've gotta go, baby girl. Duchess is about to start. I love you.'

'Alright. Say hi to everyone from me. I love you.'

Caleb blows a kiss into the camera. Nicolás turns off his phone screen and the black mirror catches my reflection behind him.

He jolts. Drops his phone. Swivels around and slides off the sofa at the same time. Then presses his forehead to the carpet with a long exhale.

'Don't do that,' he whispers. 'Don't sneak up on me in the dark like that. My life just flashed.'

Taking deep breaths, Nicolás stays on the rug for a moment before he climbs back onto the sofa. 'D'you wanna sit?'

I hesitate at the threshold, scrunching my toes in my socks, until I move to the opposite end of the sofa. I keep my spine straight, my hands placed in my lap, palms up like I'm feeling for rain.

My eyes bolt to the black television screen, ensuring my reflection stays in it. I can't make out details in the dark glass but I don't need them to know it's there, to feel the evil between my bones.

It's better there than free, I guess. If I can't kill it then I'll do my best to contain it.

Nicolás folds one knee beside him to better be able to face me. 'Did you put on the burn cream?'

I hum in confirmation.

Leaning over, he looks at my hands, twisting my left wrist so he can see. 'Don't look too bad. Do it hurt proper?'

I shake my head.

'Did you take paracetamol?'

I shake my head again.

Summat like exhaustion or exasperation prods me before Nicolás quickly irons away all his prongs. 'You're allowed to take painkillers,' he says, as if simply thinking out loud.

No. I can't take tablets. They could be poisoned. They could be replaced with sleeping pills to knock me out and lock me in.

Besides, I deserve it, the pain. The red and the burn and the hurt.

'I'm sorry,' I whisper.

I have to fish the letters from my stomach with barbed wire but Nicolás barely glances at them.

'That's alright.' He raps his fingers against his phone absentmindedly as he studies me. 'You wanna watch telly? You can pick.'

He offers me the remote and I stare at it blankly until he remembers the condition of my hands and turns it on himself. He flicks through the channels until we get to Grand Designs on 4 Extra and I tell him to stop.

It fails to make me laugh. The burns on my hand start to itch.

'We're you supposed to go out tonight?'

'No.' We both know he's lying. 'Caleb asked if I wanted to hang out. Cause of the... But no, I'm alright here.'

No, he isn't. He's barely seen any of his friends since I moved in and took up all his time. He needs Caleb. He needs someone who can hug him and hold him while he cries.

He misses our parents. And I don't. He should be with his chosen family today instead of the reason why his blood family is gone.