“Can’t wait,” I whisper.
And just like that, he’s gone. The door shuts with a soft click. The generator’s bass thrum threads back into the silence. Overhead, a duct rattles, then stills. Somewhere, water ticks in pipes.
And then there’s just us.
“Skye,” Mark begins again, “Are you—are you here to—”
“I told you to stop,” I cut in. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to.”
“I—” He falters. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
That almost makes me laugh. “That’s new.”
He flinches like I struck him. “Please.”
God, what is he begging for? Redemption? Mercy? Can’t he see it? I’m the sum of everything he destroyed. I'm one big walking consequence. Half-supernatural, half-ruined, and all that’s left of me is the need to cut the past off at its root.
Bad deeds create ripples.
His ripple is my inability to forgive him.
The ripple of that is me fighting my own conscience.
Even the fact that I can’t stand watching him suffer any longer is a wound he put on me.
But what was I supposed to do? Just forgive and forget? Live the rest of my existence feeling like a victim?
Isn’t it better to be the villain? To acknowledge my pain, to give it somewhere to go?
“You gave me no choice,” I whisper. “Everything that’s happening here and now… It’s because of you.”
I wish I could validate myself for once without it costing me something. But that gnawing in my chest? That is the price.
“How did you live with it?” I ask, my voice cracking. “All those years… how did you just live with what you did to me?”
“I—Skye… please.”
“Don’t beg me,” I cut in. “All I ever wanted was peace.”
But he’s not listening. He never could. He’s incapable of understanding anything beyond the edge of his own despair.
“I know,” he says quietly. “I know I did bad things and—”
“Bad?” I echo. “Mark, youkilledme. You condemned my soul.”
He blinks rapidly, like he’s trying to clear a film from his eyes. “Skye, listen—”
“I am.” I tilt my head. “And now you’re going to listen, because this is all I have left to say. And when I’m done, I’ll do what I came here to do.”
Maybe if I say it all—if he’s forced to hear it—maybe that’ll finally end it.
“Please don’t—” he starts.
“You were a monster to me,” I interrupt again, voice low and trembling. “So I’ll be a monster to you. You decided money and power mattered more than love. You destroyed your own life, not me. I’m just finishing what you started.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s praying that when he opens them, I’ll be someone else.
He opens them. I’m not.
