All Chapters of His Doll: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Dawn broke gray and heavy over the compound, the small convoy assembling in tense, purposeful silence as everyone gathered whatever they'd need for the confrontation waiting at the Hollow. I checked the bandage still wrapped around my healing palm one final time, the wound from our first ritual barely closed, already bracing myself for whatever fresh cut the full ceremony would demand."Ready," Ethan asked, appearing beside me as I finished loading the last of the ritual supplies into the lead vehicle."As ready as I can be," I said honestly.Mira joined us moments later, her own expression carrying the same grim determination visible on every face gathered that morning. "I've finalized the ceremony as best I can," she said. "It's not perfect. We're working with incomplete information, performing something that was likely meant to be understood fully by guardians who had generations to study it properly. But it's what we have.""It'll be enough," my father said, joining the group, his

The chamber trembled again, dust and small fragments of stone raining down from the ceiling as the cracks in the circle spread further, the low, terrible sound rising in pitch, something ancient testing the last of its failing cage."You're running out of time to decide," the Warden said, his calm voice somehow more unsettling against the chaos building around us. "Whatever choice you make, make it quickly.""Don't listen to him," Darius snapped, though I caught something uncertain flickering behind his usual arrogance now, the ground shuddering hard enough to make even him stagger slightly. "This is exactly the kind of manipulation he's used from the beginning.""He's not wrong about the danger," Mira said quietly, moving to stand beside me, her eyes fixed on the widening fractures. "Selene, whatever we're going to do, we need to decide now."I turned to Ethan, searching his face for some sign of what he was thinking, and found him already watching me, something steady and resolved s

The peace lasted eleven days.I know because I counted them, each one a small, precious gift after everything we'd survived, mornings spent in the garden with Ethan, afternoons helping Mira and my father catalogue the guardian texts we'd need to properly understand what we'd actually accomplished at the Hollow. Andy and Matthias had begun rebuilding what remained of the compound, and for the first time since the auction that started everything, I let myself believe, cautiously, that we might actually be allowed to simply live.It ended on the twelfth night.I woke to Ethan's absence beside me, the sheets still warm where he should have been, and the low murmur of voices carrying from somewhere deeper in the house pulled me upright before I'd even fully processed what had woken me.I found him in the study, Andy and Matthias already there, all three of them huddled around a laptop with expressions carved from something I recognized immediately as dread."What's happened," I asked, pull

"No," I gasped, my concentration fracturing entirely as the cracks spread wider across the circle's surface, the low, hungry sound climbing louder, closer to something that sounded, horrifyingly, like a voice trying to form words. "Ethan—""Selene, look at me." Mira's grip tightened hard on my uninjured hand, forcing my attention back toward her rather than the chaos audible above us. "If we stop now, everything unravels completely. We finish this, or we lose whatever ground we've already gained.""He could be hurt," I said, tears burning hot despite the urgency demanding my focus. "Mira, that was his voice.""I know," she said, her own voice tight with barely restrained fear. "But we can't help him by failing here. Please, Selene. Finish the incantation with me. It's the only way any of us walk out of this chamber."I forced my eyes closed, drawing on every ounce of discipline I possessed, and returned to the ancient words, my voice shaking but growing steadier as Mira's own voice an

The words landed like a physical blow, and I watched Ethan's expression shift instantly from grief and wary reconciliation into something sharper, colder, pure focus replacing every other emotion that had been warring behind his eyes only moments before."Where," he demanded. "When exactly did this happen.""During the retreat," Andy said, still catching his breath. "We were focused on pushing them off the property. Nobody saw it happen directly, but one of the guards found this near the treeline."He held out a folded piece of paper, and Ethan snatched it from his hand, unfolding it with visible urgency. I moved closer, reading over his shoulder, my stomach dropping at the message scrawled there in handwriting I didn't recognize but immediately understood belonged to someone working for the Warden.*You sealed the gateway. Impressive, for amateurs working from incomplete fragments. But knowledge has a price, and your friend will pay it unless you're willing to trade something more va