She could’ve brought it to me. Could’ve placed it at my feet and asked for mercy. She didn’t. She left it in a wall and sent me a message with the photo.
A map. A breadcrumb. A dare. She gave me silence. So now? I would give her what silence earns.
I took the book. Took the hoodie. Left the wall open. Let the space gape like a wound. Let anyone who passed see how she tried to hold both sides—and lost.
She gave them secrets. She gave me war. And now? She would get exactly what she earned. No leash. No forgiveness. Just me.
And the consequences.
3
CLOE
The first thingI heard was the monitor.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Too clean. Too steady. The kind of sound that didn’t belong to the living. It belonged to survivors. To ghosts still tethered by machines. To girls with blood under their nails and regret behind their eyes.
Girls like me.
My body ached. Like I’d been dropped into something cold and left there too long. My limbs didn’t feel like mine anymore. They were weight and memory and consequence.
My mouth was dry. My tongue stuck to the roof of it, thick and useless. And my throat burned like I’d swallowed something sharp—metal, maybe. Regret. Rust.
I blinked once. Light flared overhead—low and sterile, too dim to be comforting and too bright to feel safe. It painted the world in sick tones, the kind of light that made even the living look like ghosts.
Ceiling tiles stared back at me. A faint hum from the wall behind my head buzzed against my skull. The air smelled too clean. Not like bleach. Not like medicine. Just... clinical.
This wasn’t a hospital. It was something more private. More dangerous. A place where people didn’t come to heal.
They came to bekept.
I turned my head. Slowly. Each movement came with its own threat of betrayal. My neck pulled. My ribs screamed. Even the muscles in my jaw felt tight.
There were no nurses. No doors opening down the hall. No carts squeaking or rubber soles scuffing tile. Just a room. A bed. A silence I recognized.
Then I saw him.
Loyal.
Sitting in the corner. Not moving. Not blinking. Like he’d been carved from the wall itself. Like shadow had decided it needed a guardian.
One leg crossed. Arms folded. Hands relaxed—not clenched. Not loose. Just… ready. Elbows resting on the chair arms like he had all the time in the world and none of it belonged to me.
He didn’t look at the monitor. Didn’t glance at the door. He just watched me. Still. Steady. Absolute.
His gaze wasn’t angry. But it wasn’t kind. There was no mercy in his eyes. Just verdict. Like my blood had already been weighed and the sentence had already fallen.
My lips parted. I wanted to speak. Wanted to explain. To apologize. To ask what day it was. What happened after?—
But no words came. None felt right. I didn’t know how to speak to the man who once laughed with me around a half-empty bottle and now sat like judgment itself.
So I whispered.
