After ditching the end of the reception—they’d stayed long enough for a piece of GiGi’s amazing cake—Chas and Gavin held hands as they drove to the tattoo shop. They were both exhausted and happy and satisfied. But Chas really wanted to change out of her ballgown now.

“You don’t have to stay at my tiny apartment for the rest of your stay in New Orleans. I can get you a hotel room if you don’t want to go back to your uncle’s place. I’ll get your luggage,” Gavin said.

Chas chided him. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m moving in.”

Gavin frowned a bit and said, “Babe, you’ve seen my place. I don’t have room for all your clothes in my closet. I assume.”

She laughed. “No, you don’t. But fuck that. Mama and Daddy can keep all my shit. I’m starting over. I’m moving in, getting a job, going to art school and living with you above the Pho Palace.”

“Well, babe, you can’t wear that dress to work at the tattoo parlor, you’ll scare the customers. Fortunately, I also sell clothes.”

At the tattoo shop, which Gavin had closed for the day even though it was Saturday, he was surprised to see Manny there.

“Dude, what’s up? Hey, it’s a good thing you’re here, ’cause we need to talk. Remember yesterday when I asked you if you’d seen me in here the night of the bachelor party? Why did you lie? And why did you lie to her?”

But Manny was staring creepily at them in the dark.

“Because my plan didn’t work.”

Gavin’s stomach suddenly tied into a knot. And then the truth started to dawn. A memory came back. The needles. When he and Chas were drunkenly getting prepped for their matching tattoos, Manny had said something like, “Here, boss, use these needles, I just cleaned ’em.”

“Manny? What did you do?”

Manny scoffed. “You know what I did. I saw all of you and your panther hussies at the bar. You know the clans are not supposed to mix. I did what I had to do.”

“You poisoned us? How?” Gavin was dumbstruck.

Manny laughed. “You’re so naïve, man. Keeping the clan pure is all I talk about. You should have known to be careful around me. I put a hex on the ink so you would lose control and turn on each other. So you would show yourself to her and then the wolf would do to the cat what a wolf is supposed to do.”

Chastity laughed out loud. “That voodoo stuff isn’t real! And for the last time, I’m from Baton Rouge! I’m a wildcat! Remember, asshole?”

Manny pointed a finger at her.

“You think you’re a shapeshifter but that voodoo isn’t real? I bind you, little girl.”

And with that, Chas sat down in a nearby chair, as if being pushed down by an invisible force.

Gavin felt the knot in his stomach grow to a full blown urge to kill Manny with his bare hands, but at the same moment, Manny was faster. Gavin’s arms and legs were not responding, but moving as if controlled by magic.

“Gav, buddy, just because you hired a wolf doesn’t mean you hired a friend. If you want to prevent a dark practitioner from coming in to your space and using the magics to protect the clan, then you really are not seeing the big picture. It’s too bad the hallucinogens didn’t work on you two, but this is better. It will be so much more of a tragic story. The chaste debutante of Baton Rouge and her forbidden lover found dead in murder-suicide pact.”

“You’re demented,” Gavin spat out.

“And you’re almost dead,” Manny said. “You won’t listen to reason, and spells don’t seem to work. So now I do what I have to do. Say your goodbyes, lovebirds.”

Gavin watched helplessly as Manny sauntered over to Chastity, who was struggling to move away from him, fighting against invisible restraints. Manny pulled out a .22 pistol from inside his leather vest. He pressed the cold steel against her temple, then traced it down toward the lower back side of her skull. She whimpered and tears fell as she made eye contact with Gavin. Gavin grunted and kicked against the invisible restraints.

“Don’t worry,” Manny said, his voice flat with the tone of a sociopath. “I’ll make it quick.”

Gavin finally stopped his fighting and snarling and just stared into Chastity’s eyes with as much tenderness as he could muster. He did not want her last memory to be of him acting like a mad, caged animal.

If this was going to be their last moment on earth, he wanted her to feel calm and loved. Gavin could lay Manny flat as a pancake in a fair fight. But this was not a fair fight, and unless the voodoo spell wore off soon, this was the end of everything.

Chas looked back at him and seemed to understand. Gavin and Chas shared their last moment together by making it their own. They both understood that no matter what happened, there was no Manny, there was no pistol, and there was no invisible magic holding them apart. It was just them, and that in the end, that’s all that mattered.

And then, something strange crossed over Chas’s face.

It started with a smile.

Gavin was not sure what this meant, but he was sure of one thing:

He had hope.