Ruin Me, Alpha Chapter 45: “Find Me”

I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I stared at the note—Find —and I moved.

My feet hit the cold floor, scrambling for the dress I had discarded hours ago. I pulled the silk fabric up my body, not caring that it was wrinkled, not caring that I slled like sex and stale wine. I shoved my feet into my heels and sprinted for the door.

I threw the heavy oak doors open and burst into the hallway.

Empty.

"Devon!" I scread, my voice bouncing off the stone walls.

Silence.

I ran. I didn’t know where I was running to, but my legs carried toward the Grand Hall. That’s where the loops always centered. That’s where the parties were. That’s where the resets happened.

I took the stairs two at a ti, my heart hamring a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I reached the bottom landing and shoved the double doors to the ballroom open, expecting the blast of orchestral music, the clinking of champagne glasses, the anniversary of Alpha Devon just like how the ti loop started when Devon wasn’t there.

But, there was no music. There were no lights.

The massive hall was draped in black. Black ribbons hung from the chandeliers. Black cloth covered the tables. And the party... it went on. Everything happening was not what had happened in the ti loops, it looked like what had happened after. Including Brielle comforting Astrid.

And at the front of the room, on a raised dais, sat a casket. Closed. Ebony wood with silver handles. But, there hadn’t been a casket all through the rebooting of the ti loop...

Above it hung a massive portrait of Devon. Everything was different, it seed like a real funeral. Then, it hit . I was back in the real world.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head. "No, this is wrong. This isn’t the loop."

I stepped forward, my heels clicking loudly on the marble floor. Heads turned. Eyes widened.

"Irene?"

I whipped my head around. Brielle was rushing toward , her face blotchy, her eyes red and swollen. It hadn’t been like that during the loop also. She was wearing a black mourning dress that swallowed her small fra.

"Irene, where have you been?" she choked out, reaching for . "We looked everywhere. The ceremony is about to end."

I smacked her hands away. "Stop it. Tell him to co out."

"What?" Brielle recoiled, looking at like I was insane.

"Devon," I snapped, scanning the room frantically. "Tell him the ga is over. I found the note. I’m here. He wins. Just tell him to co out!"

"Irene..." Brielle’s voice broke. She grabbed my shoulders, her grip tight, shaking . "He’s gone. You know he’s gone. You... you killed him."

I froze.

"I didn’t," I said, my voice trembling. "Not this ti. We were... we were just together. Upstairs. He left a note."

"He’s been dead for three days," Brielle sobbed. "This is the funeral. It’s real. Look around you! It’s over!"

I looked at the casket again. I felt the cold creeping up my legs. This wasn’t a reset. This felt heavy and permanent. The air lacked that static charge of the loop.

"No," I muttered. "He promised."

I shoved Brielle backward. She stumbled, gasping, but I didn’t look back. I turned and ran. I ran back out the double doors, ignoring the whispers, ignoring the shocked gasps of the pack mbers.

I needed air. I needed to think.

I burst out of the main entrance and into the night. The cold wind hit . I stumbled toward the Alpha Wing, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

"Devon!" I scread at the moon. "Co out!"

"He cannot hear you."

The voice was like grinding stones. I spun around.

Standing in the shadows of the Alpha Wing entrance was a woman. She was old, her skin like parchnt paper, her eyes milky white but seeing everything. She wore tattered grey robes and held a staff made of twisted bone.

I recognized her. The witch. The one who gave the grimoire to resurrect Devon.

I stord toward her. "What did you do? Where is he?"

"I did what you asked," she said calmly, not moving an inch as I got in her face. "I brought him back to life like you requested."

"It didn’t work!" I yelled. "He rembered everything! Every death. And, he sohow managed into this loop."

"Because the grimoire was not strong enough," she said simply. "To erase mory is one thing. To erase obsession? To erase a soul-tie that has been knotted with blood and hate? Impossible. The magic backfired, Irene Harvey."

"Backfired how?" I demanded. "Where am I? This is not the real world right?"

"It is. You were thrown out of the ti loop but Devon is still there," she said. "The grimoire did work and... he woke up in the real world when you were tosse into the ti loop."

My stomach dropped. "He woke up? In the real world?"

"Yes."

"Then where is he?" I pointed back toward the hall. "They’re burying him in there!"

"Listen to , girl. When Devon Warner woke up during the exact ti you began your ti loop, when he realized you were trapped in a loop which was the sacrifice you made... he did not mourn."

She took a step closer, her milky eyes boring into mine.

"He went hunting."

I swallowed hard. "Hunting for what?"

"For a way back to you."

The wind howled around us, whipping my hair across my face.

"He ca to ," the witch continued, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "He demanded I send him to where you were. I told him it was impossible. I told him you were lost in a ti stream that was collapsing. I told him that if he tried to enter it, the consequences would be catastrophic."

"And?" I whispered.

"He did not care. He forced the ritual. He offered his own life force as the anchor." She paused, tilting her head. "He forced himself into your ti loop and took control over it. Now, he is facing the consequence."

"What consequence?" I grabbed the front of her robes. "Where is he? Please, tell where he is!"

"He is trapped in his own ti loop now," she said, her voice devoid of sympathy. "A different one."

Tears blurred my vision. Hot, angry tears. "You let him do that?"

"I do not ’let’ an Alpha like him do anything. He does what he wants." She pulled my hands off her robes. "He knew the cost. He knew that once he entered, he could never return to the real world. He chose the prison because it was the only way to get to you."

"He’s an idiot," I choked out, a sob ripping through my chest. "He’s a grandiose, narcissistic idiot."

"He is a man in love," she corrected. "Or madness. The line is thin."

"Take to him."

The witch stared at . "Did you not hear ? It is a prison. A trap. It is his ti loop. He successfully dismantled your ti loop, if you force yourself into his ti loop, you’d be trapped forever."

"I don’t care," I snapped. "He’s there because of . You said he got his own ti loop because he wanted to et . If I’m not there, he’s just... alone."

"He is."

"Then send back!"

"I can," she said slowly. "But you must understand the choice before you."

She slamd her staff against the stone ground. The world around us seed to flicker—the funeral hall, the weeping Brielle, the cold night—it all wavered like a reflection in water.

"Option one," the witch said. "I can sever the tie completely right now. I can anchor you here, in the real world. You will live. You will move on. Devon will remain in the loop he created, trapped in a cycle of his own making, and over ti, you will forget him. You will be free."

I stared at her. Free? After everything? A life without the constant violence, the constant pull of him?

"And option two?" I asked, my voice barely audible.

"I send you to him," she said. "But the loop he has entered... it is not the soft bedroom loop you just left. It is harsh. It is built on his greatest trauma and his greatest desire."

"What does that an?"

"The loop starts when you were eighteen," she said. "And it runs its course through the years, through the pain, through the betrayal. And it ends..." She paused, a cruel smile touching her lips. "It ends when you kill him."

I recoiled. "What?"

"The trigger for the reboot," she explained. "It is the mont you slashed his throat and made him create a frozen world. That is the only when the loop resets. He has trapped himself in a cycle where the woman he loves murders him, over and over again, for eternity."

I felt sick. "Why would he do that?"

"Because it is the only way he gets to be with you," she said. "He would rather die by your hand a million tis than live in a world where you do not exist."

"That’s sick," I whispered. "That’s... torture."

"It is penance," she said. "Or passion. Now, choose."

She held out her hand. In her palm lay a small, black stone.

"Take the stone, and you return to the real world. Walk away, Irene. Go inside, mourn him at the empty casket, and live your life."

She closed her hand and pointed a bony finger at the darkness behind her, where a swirling vortex of grey mist had begun to form.

"Or step into the mist. You will join him. You will go back to being eighteen. You will live it all again. And you will have to kill him. Again. And again. And there is no coming back. Once you step in, the door closes."

I looked at the funeral hall. It was safe. Brielle was there. My freedom was there. I could finally breathe. I could finally stop running. Devon would be a ghost, a mory that faded with ti.

I looked at the mist. It was terrifying. It scread of pain and blood. It promised a lifeti of fighting, of hating, of loving a monster who was obsessed enough to build a hell just to hold .

"He’s alone in there," I whispered, more to myself than to her.

"He made his choice," the witch said. "Make yours."

My heart hamred against my ribs. I thought of his face in the bedroom, the way he looked at before I fell asleep.

I thought of the King chess piece on the pillow. Find .

I looked at the safety of the real world. Then I looked at the swirling chaos of the loop.

I took a breath, the air shaking in my lungs. I looked at the witch, my hands balling into fists at my sides.