NO PLACE LEFT

The room was quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that clawed at your throat. I sat on the bed, my fingers clenched around the termination letter like it had personally betrayed me. The words blurred together under the dim light of my bedside lamp, but the sting of it was clear.You are hereby dismissed from your position…Effective immediately…Due to incidents of misconduct…What a joke.I let the paper fall from my hands and flutter to the floor like a dying bird. I wasn’t going to cry. Not again.Instead, I started to pack.Clothes. Toiletries. My books. My notebook with all the scrawled warnings and half-baked theories about the woman—the witch. A few faded photographs that used to make this place feel like a temporary home. Now it was nothing more than a reminder that I didn’t belong here. Not with the rest of them. Not in this sterile, fearful building that watched me like I might combust at any moment.I stuffed the last of my things into my bag, zipped it up, and threw on my

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APOTHECARY IN THE WOODS

The tires crunched over gravel as Andre's car came to a reluctant stop. The road behind us had vanished into dense forest, the canopy above so thick it nearly swallowed the daylight. Before us stood a small, crooked cottage, its roof covered in moss and its wooden walls faded by years of rain and wind. It looked like something out of a nightmare fairytale. If a witch stepped out with a cursed apple, I wouldn’t be surprised.“This is it?” I asked, peering out the windshield.Andre nodded, shutting off the engine. “Looks cozy, right?”“Cozy in a ‘you’ll die if you spend the night here’ kind of way.”He snorted. “Come on, don’t be dramatic. She’s harmless. Mostly.”I followed him out of the car, my boots sinking slightly into the damp forest floor. The smell of pine and earth was sharp in the air, and everything was so quiet it made my skin crawl. No birds. No wind. Just the muffled sound of our footsteps as we approached the cottage.Andre knocked on the door.Once.Twice.Three times.

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SHADOWS THAT BURN

I took the box carefully, the weight of it unsettling. “What’s in it?”“The next step.”“That’s cryptic.”Fiona raised a brow. “Darling, you’re being haunted by a soul scorched from history and possessed by vengeance. Did you expect a brochure and a welcome kit?”Andre burst out laughing, and to my surprise, I joined him. Even Fiona cracked a smile.It felt like we were breathing again. Just a little.Outside, the wind howled low and hungry, the forest groaning in its wake. I stared out the small window as Fiona handed me a pouch of dried herbs.“For dreams,” she said. “It won’t make them go away. But it might help you survive them.”I nodded, clutching the box tighter.When we left the apothecary, the sky was already bleeding into dusk. Andre held my hand as we walked back to his car, his grip grounding me. We didn’t speak much, and honestly, I was grateful. My thoughts were already clawing at each other inside my skull.“She’s intense,” he said once we were driving again. “But not t

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THE SPARK OF DARKNESS

The sunlight bleeding through the curtains barely managed to warm the cold pit in my stomach. I stood by the window of Andre’s penthouse, watching the city stir to life. I hadn’t told him yet, but my chest ached every time I blinked—expecting to see that reflection again. That face. Her face. The one that kept showing up in my nightmares, in mirrors, in every corner of my collapsing sanity.Andre walked in with two cups of coffee, setting one down beside me. "Sleep any better?"I forced a small smile and took the cup. "I had a nightmare. Again."He sat beside me on the armrest, giving me that brotherly look of concern I hadn’t seen in years. "The one with the witch?"I nodded."You know," he said, tapping his mug lightly against mine, "there’s a way we can figure this out. You need to dig into the town’s past. We find out who she is, what she wants. Maybe even why you."I bit my lip. "You want me to go back to that ghost town?"He nodded slowly. "I know it’s not ideal, but this isn’t

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Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Queen of The Rouge Blood: Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 24

NO PLACE LEFT

APOTHECARY IN THE WOODS

SHADOWS THAT BURN

THE SPARK OF DARKNESS