My Girlfriend's Family Is Gambling for My Life

A jolt went through me, and my hand holding the card froze. "Who's talking to me?"

I looked around. My girlfriend, Lucy Greenwood, had her head lowered, looking at her cards, while her mom, Eva Lane, and their neighbor, Zayn Garner, laughed as they checked their cards.

Nobody answered me.

That voice sounded like a hallucination.

Did I imagine it?

I was about to play my card when that voice rang out from my chest again. "What the fuck? Are you seriously going to play that? You want to throw your bright future away and become a vegetable?"

My hand jerked, and I pulled the card back.

Lucy looked over, her gaze soft. "Milo, just play whatever cards you want. My mom likes you. She wants you to win more games."

Zayn smiled. "Milo, I finally get it now. I'm the biggest loser here. I'm just here to help you win."

Eva also grinned. "Milo's really lucky. We're happy just watching him play."

All three of them were smiling, their eyes fixed on the card in my hand.

An inexplicable chill ran down my spine. My fingers accidentally brushed against something hard on my chest.

It was the protective charm my childhood friend, Hector Litt, had insisted I wear before I left. He'd gripped my hand tightly and said, "This trip is dangerous. Make sure you keep it on."

The voice came from the charm. "Stop touching me. It's me. I'm your guardian angel! Any later, and you'd be paying for this with your life!"

Sweat gathered in my palm. I found the notion of trading my life for luck too ridiculous.

The voice said, "This poker table is part of a life-swapping ritual. The whole setup is designed to trade your life for someone else's by having you sit in the west seat and play that card. The moment you do, your soul will leave your body and take the place of that comatose guy in the next room!"

My scalp went numb. I quickly pulled my hand back and slapped down another card.

"Yay!" Zayn clapped his hands happily. "Finally, a win!"

I glanced at Lucy discreetly.

She was smiling as she pushed the chips over. "Here, here. I never said I wouldn't pay."

Eva paid up happily too.

Everything seemed as normal as an ordinary poker game. I secretly let out a sigh of relief. Maybe I'd really been overthinking it.

But just when I was about to lower my head to shuffle the cards, I caught a glimpse of Eva looking at Zayn, her expression turning cold and her gaze becoming vicious.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

The voice came again. "Look behind you! That's your soul lamp! The guy lying in the next room has one over his head too!"

I turned around under the pretense of getting a glass of water and saw that, sure enough, a candle with a ghostly green flame was burning quietly on the candlestick behind me.

The glass in my hand dropped to the ground.

Lucy grabbed my hand. "Did you burn yourself? Why is your hand so cold?"

My face paled, and my voice trembled. "Why is that flame… green?"

Eva smiled kindly. "Oh, that? I bought that scented candle overseas. It's infused with essential oils. That's why when it burns, it's green in color. Take a whiff. It has a woody smell. It's quite calming."

A faint, woody scent drifted over, and my nerves relaxed a little.

I really was overthinking it!

There just weren't that many weird things happening in real life. Maybe I was just too tired from playing cards too long. Also, I just remembered that Lucy didn't have a brother. She and Eva were the only ones at home for the holidays.

And we'd only decided to play cards tonight on a whim. We were one player short, so we called over their neighbor, Zayn. He'd even said he couldn't make it because he was busy at first.

If he hadn't come, we wouldn't have been able to get the game going at all.

How could anyone have set up a ritual in advance?

"I'll wash my hands." I stood up, my heart racing.

As I walked out of the bathroom, I accidentally bumped my shoulder into the painting on the wall. A hidden door I'd never noticed before slid open a crack.

It was pitch-black inside, but I could also make out a faint, flickering light.

I instinctively leaned closer when someone grabbed my wrist and yanked me back hard. Lucy practically lunged at me and slammed the hidden door shut.

"Don't go in there." Her voice was tense, and she was breathing a little hard. "It's a storage room that hasn't been opened in ages. It's full of dust."

Then her voice calmed. "If you want to take a look, I'll clean it tomorrow, then show you the inside."

Lucy's concerned words still rang in my ears, but I felt like the blood in my entire body had turned cold.

In that split second when the door opened, I saw it clearly. There really was someone lying in the room, with a ghostly green flame burning above his forehead.