Air comes harder now, weak pulls as her Threads maintain the pressure around me.
No—oh no.
It wasn’t just my technique, my emotions, my aim. It was theunknotting. She’s been screwing with everything from the start. Every lesson. Every rep.
How didn’t I see it?
Because I’ve been too busy trying to survive her.
I squeeze my eyes shut. My lungs tremble, every inhale a strain adjacent her hold, every pull tastes sour like smoke and betrayal.
Ezzy didn’t question it. Finn didn’t. Even Talen—They all thought Beth was helping. That I’d just snap into it eventually. That I’dget it, but I never did. I just kept trying. Kept forcing it, but what if I stopped pulling? What if I try something else?
Muscles twitch—useless jerks and my vision starts to black out at the edges again, as she closes in tight.
But thought slips through, quiet, distant, and I finally let go, I stop pulling at my knots and something shifts. Subtle. But deep. Like a lock, clicking open.
“You know,” she says, and her voice is soft now, almost gentle, as she tightens the noose of air locked around my chest, “when you told me about the fire, your mother, I knew right then how weak you were.”
Her eyes glow with the hunger of her power, it pulses through her veins as she walks towards me.
I gasp as the air around me clamps down harder. My limbs go numb. My lungs beg.She knows I’m empty, knows I’m done, that I can't fight back. She’s just baiting me, toying with me before the final strike.
But I slow my breath, close my eyes, block her out. Istopfighting, just for a heartbeat. And in that stillness... I reach.
Notlike she taught me.Notwith force. Not with fury.
I go quiet.
Gentle.
I find one knot.
Ease it like silk.
Then another. And another. Slow. Careful. Like loosening the ribbon on a corset with one fucking hand.
It’s not dramatic.
It’s not loud.
But god, it’ssatisfying.
“It wasn’t your fault, was it?” she taunts. “That’s what you tell yourself. But accidents don’t burn people alive.” Her voice slides under my skin like a scalpel, cold and pointed.
She told me to shut it all down. To bury the emotion, forget it mattered. But Talen said the opposite, tofeel it. Just don’t let it break you.
So I let it burn. Let it move through me. I don’t push it down anymore. I use it. I let her voice wind around my ribs like a barbed wire, as I unknot more Threads.
The rhythm under my ribs picks up again—harder, faster, but steady now.
Each breath deeper.
Each Thread looser.
“I bet you killed her,” she whispers, stepping closer. “And now she’s ash. Because of you, because you couldn’t control your own freakish magic.”
More knots give, silently sliding free.
