A/N: It's a shorter update, but it's an update! Hope you all enjoy. :)

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Chapter Ten

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Alex was huddled under the blanket in her cabin bed. She had been vomiting for a good portion of the day. Who knew boats could make one so nauseous?

When she wasn't puking, she was trying not to cry. Her thoughts were on Justin and Justin alone. She couldn't get out of her head the image of when she had seen him last, before finding herself drowning in the Atlantic Ocean. His protests and frustration at her insistence; the empty look in his eyes after Kenzie had arrived. They had to go to Max, right away, and yet…

"No. No—not like this. We can't do it like this."

His tears.

"I'm so sorry, Alex… for hurting you. This whole thing with Kenzie, it… it's complicated."

His hand had shaken terribly as it covered his face. His whole body had trembled and shuddered.

"You don't know the whole story."

"I guess I didn't," murmured Alex under her breath, a tear of her own sliding down her face, mocking her. Max was in the hospital, Justin wouldn't break up with Kenzie, and Kenzie tried to murder her. And she had slept with that stupid surfer.

I'm sorry, Justin. I should never have done that. I didn't realize what was going on.

But she still didn't.

"Fuck the Wizard Contest," she spat, choking on her words as her body heaved under the weight of her sudden sobs. Fuck, I've been crying a lot. Get it together, Alex. But even as thoughts the words felt empty.

If she had won the Wizard Contest, or if the damned thing just didn't exist, there wouldn't be a problem. She could be zipping and zapping her way to New York and California and all over to save her family. She could run away and never be found again. She could steal Justin and be his wife, and neither one would have to give up their powers. She could go back in time and stop Justin from ever looking at Kenzie by kissing him when they were younger, before he'd ever left for college.

This wasn't her way. Alex Russo did not sit by and do nothing but cry while the world was going to hell around her. Yet what could she do? If she had let Anita send her to her parents, she would have no way to get to Justin. If she was sent instead to Justin, she would be just as powerless before Kenzie as she had been four days ago. She didn't have the faintest idea what to do. Her blood boiled with frustration, but all that came out of her was water.

"Fuck it all," she wailed, before heaving what felt like all her insides into the trash can.

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Dead, dead. Alex is dead.

Justin's head was throbbing. His eyes wouldn't unsee what they had been shown: Kenzie's projected image of Alex, face white as paper and bloated, black hair floating all around her.

No, she's lying. Alex can't be dead. Kenzie's making it all up just to scare me.

"Your sorrow is delicious, my love. Tell me, how does it feel to lose everything?"

Were anyone to look on Justin's face, they would see one haggard and aged, with dark circles around the eyes. His hair had become brittle and was going grey.

"I did love you, once. Truly. Which is why you've lasted even this long. But now that I know the truth, well… it's become a different story."

He would have asked her how much longer, but speaking would use too much of what little energy he had left. Better to preserve himself for as long as possible, just in case.

Just in case of what, exactly? he wondered bitterly. For Mom and Dad to show up and rescue you? For Alex or Max? No. Nobody is coming to save you. You can't even save yourself from this. Idiot.

Kenzie spread herself out on the floor beside where he lay, propping her head up on her arms. "Are you wondering why it's happening this way?" she asked him, almost sweetly. "I'm not just taking your magic, you know. I'm taking your life. I've told you that, but don't you want to know why?"

He glanced at her, locking eyes. Alex is dead. She killed Alex. He made himself choke out the word, "No."

She frowned. "You're always so hungry for knowledge, Justin." She sounded disappointed. "That's part of what attracted me to you. I knew your insatiable curiosity for facts and trivia would make you different from the others. I was eager to experience someone smart, for once." She sighed then, mournfully. "I suppose I should have expected you to let me down. I almost don't want to eat you."

Dead, dead. Alex is dead. "You're an… energy… vampire?" he found himself asking. He thought for a moment of Juliet, and his heart was sad. Calling Kenzie a vampire shames them.

Kenzie laughed, a melodic trill that Justin once found endearing. "No, but that's not inaccurate," she told him, eyes dancing. She was clearly pleased by his conversation. "I'm a soul eater."

Justin felt all his hopes die, replaced by sheer terror. He had read about soul eaters once, long ago, in an old book. They lived normally as humans or animals or whatever their form, but remained immortal and youthful by feeding off the souls of the living. A prospective victim had to be someone with whom the creature was or could become very close, and then, in the end, were destroyed completely. There was no afterlife of any kind, no possibility for a rebirth or a resurrection, for one whose soul had been eaten, even into a soulless creature like a vampire.

He thanked whatever god was listening that Kenzie had merely drowned Alex. But now she would dwell alone in heaven, if one existed, for Justin would never make it there.

"Wizard souls are quite a treat," Kenzie told him, as if this would make him feel better about his situation. "Particularly Full Wizards. That extra bite of magic really hits the spot. Not to mention it greatly enhances my own magic abilities." Her smile bared all her teeth. "That's why your magic grew weaker these last few months, you know. I sensed something amiss after you returned with that bitch sister of yours, and so I thought if I drank your soul a little at a time, it might be easier to coerce you."

She killed Alex, and she's killing me. She's eating my magic away. He wondered if, in ancient times, her kind had a truer form, and were monsters reviled and slain.

"Your stupid Wizarding Competition has made it much harder to find Full Wizards these days, by the way," she went on, growing animated. "What's even the point of that law, anyway? Not only do you have to lose a part of yourself that you've been born with, but then, if you fall in love with a mortal, you give up your powers entirely. What happens if you don't have a sibling? Or what if you fuck and then marry the sibling from whom you stole your magic?"

His eyes widened, and he saw hers darken and her teeth sharpen. "Wouldn't that have been beautiful, Justin? You and your sister marry in secret. Would you have split the magic between you, or would your Russo magic have been lost forever? Did you ever wonder about that, when you were indulging in your perversion against nature?"

Admittedly, he had thought about that before. Max was always the one—but… if he dies…

No. He couldn't think about that. His parents wouldn't lose all three of their children at once. Those were unthinkably bad odds.

"Anyway, it doesn't really matter now, does it? Because soon enough, you'll just be dead."

Dead. Alex is dead. I'm so sorry, Alex. I should've professed my love long ago.

Justin refused once more to ask how long. Instead, he closed his eyes, and waited.