K: One by one, my people are gone. I won’t be next.
K: You built the bones. You taught it how to hate.
K: It sees everything now. You taught it to crawl. It ran.
K: You can’t warn anyone. It’s already rewriting the warnings.
K: You can’t stop it.
K: It wants you.
And then.
K:It remembers you.
I handed backthe phone to Rio. “Show those images to Jamie.”
I closed my eyes.
I was exhausted.
FOURTEEN
Rio
I couldn’t stayin the same room with Lyric. Not with my thoughts clawing and snapping, refusing to settle. Everything about him contradicted what I’d seen with my own eyes. A few hours ago, we all wondered if he might not survive the night. Limp in my arms. Feverish. Drifting in and out of consciousness while I’d carried him to bed.
But now? He was upright. Moving. Messing with my head as ifIwas the one who needed caring for.
It messed with my head. Was he that stubborn? Or had the world twisted him into something unbreakable—something that kept going not because it didn’t hurt, but because stopping wasn’t an option. As if pain was static that he’d learned to tune out.
I didn’t have answers, but I knew this: watchinghim pace that room, clearly hurting and still pushing forward, did something to me. Made me feel reckless. Protective. On edge.
I wanted to care for him—but that didn’t mean I cared about him. Not like that. I wasn’t built for tenderness. But God, I wanted to touch him. To check every bruise, count every wound. Make sure he was still here, still breathing.
But I couldn’t. Because the last time I touched him, I hurt him. And I didn’t think I’d survive doing that again.
Fuck. I needed a fight. I needed to bleed something out of me—burn it up before it burned me down.
Yeah, but a fight means you could hurt someone. Lyric.
I tried not to think much about Danny anymore. The dull thud of meat on concrete. The weight of someone trusting me not to kill them.
When I left prison, I thought I’d be different. Maybe not better, but quieter. I’d earned that, right? Did my time. Ate the guilt. Built a career here with my hands, found a family that cared.
But then Lyric happened -- with his beautiful eyes, and his determination to be stronger -- and he dared me to say he wasn’t strong. Dared me to callhim weak.
And I checked him out. I stared at him as though I wanted him.
And I was confused as hell.
His movements were less stiff, and he moved with a grace and coiled tension I knew would unspool into something dangerous if he let it. Something beautiful.
He’d be fluid in the cage. Fast, clever, striking as if he meant it. Stunning. And I’d want to watch him—wanted to see him own that space. But not with me. Never with me.
I’d kill him.
Just like Danny.
