Marked by Fate

It’s not a dream. I know because the pain has a color. A deep, pulsing violet that bleeds through the black behind my eyelids. The ache is a low thrum, a second heartbeat seated in the meat of my throat, just below the hinge of my jaw. I press my fingers to it and feel the heat. Skin hot to the touch, puffed and tender. I know what it is before I open my eyes.

I don’t want to open my eyes.

The air in my apartment smells like copper and old dust. My sheets are twisted around my legs, damp with sweat. The ceiling fan clicks on every rotation, a sound I’ve cursed a hundred times. Now it’s the only thing that feels real. I sit up slow, my hand still clamped to my neck, and I look at the mirror across the room.

There it is. A mark the size of a thumbprint, black at the center and fading to a bruised red around the edges. It looks like a bite. It feels like a brand. I trace the outline with my fingertip and my whole body shivers. Not from fear. Something else. Something that makes my stomach tighten and my thighs press together under the sheet.

I know the stories. Every girl in the borough knows the stories. You get the mark, and within a week, he comes for you. The one the mark belongs to. Your fated mate. The man whose blood calls to yours, whose body was built to fit against yours in the dark. The stories call it a gift. A blessing from the old gods, the ones who still remember how to want.

I call it a death sentence.

The last girl who got marked in my building was Lena from 3B. She was nineteen. She had a laugh like a broken bell, loud and wrong and beautiful. She showed me her mark three days after it appeared. A crescent moon shape on her collarbone. She was scared but she was excited too. She talked about him like he was already real. Like she was already in love. She packed a bag and waited by the window.

He came on the fifth night. I heard her scream. Not a scared scream. A hungry one. The kind that makes your hair stand up and your mouth go dry. The next morning her door was open. Her bag was still there. Her phone was still on the charger. She was gone.

That was six months ago. I still check the obituaries.

I get out of bed and walk to the kitchen. My bare feet stick to the linoleum. The coffee maker is crusted with old grounds. I don’t bother. I pour a glass of water and drink it standing at the counter, my back to the window, because I don’t want to see the street. I don’t want to wonder if he’s out there already. Watching. Waiting.

I’m twenty-six. I work at a bookstore that smells like paper and loneliness. I have a cat named Boris who hates me. I have a mother who calls once a week to ask if I’ve met anyone nice. I have a life so small and quiet that I could fold it into my pocket and forget it was there.

And now I have a mark on my neck that says otherwise.

The heat pulses again. A throb that travels down my throat and spreads across my chest. I close my eyes and I see him. Not his face. I don’t know his face. But I feel him. A pressure in the air around me, like the moment before a storm breaks. He’s close. He’s been close for a while. I’ve felt him for days without understanding what I was feeling. A prickling at the back of my neck when I walked home from the subway. A sudden stillness in the air when I unlocked my door. A sense that I was being watched, followed, wanted.

I thought I was paranoid. I thought I was losing it.

I wasn’t.

I pull on jeans and a sweater. The collar rubs against the mark and I wince. I need to see someone. There’s a woman in the basement of the old church on Mott Street. Sister Marguerite. She knows things. She helped Lena before she went. She gave her a charm, a prayer, a warning. Lena took it all. It didn’t matter.

But I don’t know what else to do.

The street is gray. The sky is the color of a dirty sink. I walk fast, my hands shoved in my pockets, my head down. The city is loud but I hear everything. The scrape of a boot on concrete. The hiss of a bus door. A man’s voice, low and rough, saying something I can’t make out. I don’t look up. I keep walking.

The church is small and forgotten. The door is unlocked. Inside, it smells like incense and cold stone. Candles flicker on a wooden table. Sister Marguerite is already there, waiting for me. She’s old but her eyes are sharp. She looks at my neck and her face doesn’t change.

“You felt him,” she says. Not a question.

“Yes.”

“Before the mark?”

“I think so. For a few days. A week maybe.”

She nods. She picks up a candle and holds it close to my throat. The heat is a whisper compared to the mark. I let her look.

“He’s strong,” she says. “The mark is deep. He’s been looking for you a long time.”

“I don’t want to be found.”

She looks at me then. Her eyes are old and tired and kind. “That doesn’t matter. The mark is the claim. It’s already done. You can fight it, but you can’t stop it. When he comes, you will go. You will want to go. That’s the cruelty of it.”

I feel the tears before I know I’m crying. They run hot down my cheeks. I don’t wipe them away.

“What do I do?”

She is quiet for a long time. The candle flickers. The shadows dance.

“You can try to run,” she says. “But he will find you. You can try to hide. But he will smell you. You can try to fight. But he is stronger than you. And when he touches you, you will forget why you were fighting.”

She steps closer. Her voice drops to a whisper.

“Or you can meet him. You can look him in the eye. You can learn his name. You can decide if he is a monster or a man. And if he is a monster, you can make him wish he never found you.”

I stare at her. “How?”

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small blade. The handle is bone. The edge is sharp.

“You mark him back,” she says. “Before he marks you. You take his blood before he takes yours. It’s the only way to break the claim.”

The blade glints in the candlelight. I reach out. My hand is steady.