God, can I accept this?
This version of me, made of something darker, heavier, sharper?
Across the ward, someone cries out, painful, raw, like the guilt building inside me.The one thing I can’t burn off or bandage over.
I pushed everyone away—the ones who mattered—and gave everything to the one person who planned to break me. And now I'm alone. Not just now, not just in this bed. I’ve been alone for months now. How the hell did I get here?
My throat tightens and tears sting before I can stop them. I grip the duck tighter. Not from pain, or even grief, but shame. Because it wasn’t bad luck, it wasn’t fate, it was me.
My choices.
My lies.
Over and over again.
I said I came back to be different, to be better, but what did I actually change? I didn’t tell Ezzy. I didn’t trust any of them with the truth.I kept secrets because it was easier, because it let me stay in control.
I told myself I came back because I had no choice, that it was survival. That there was no other path but this one. But that’s not true, is it? Ichosethis version of me, the one who closes doors instead of opening them. Who fights first and trusts later. Because becoming the version Iwanted—the one who’s truly honest, vulnerable,real? That would’ve been harder; that would’vecostme something.
And maybe it still will.
My fingers loosen around the duck, letting go briefly to wipe my tears with the edge of the blanket.This power—this strength—it means nothing if I end up alone on the wrong side of it all.
So what now?
Run? Go back to Ashvale with empty hands and let the pressure, the guilt, the silence, eat me alive from the inside? Or fight. Not on a mat. Not with magic. But here, with the truth, with the fallout. To become someone better, even if it means bleeding in a different way. Even if it means letting people see the ugliest parts.
Another moan splits the air down the corridor—raw, guttural. Bone reset, by the sound of it. The kind of pain that demands witnesses.
I exhale slowly and look down at the duck again, not sure why I'm still holding on so tight. Then my gaze lifts to my arm, the blisters are gone. Pink, clean skin in their place. I flex my fingers—testing for pain, tightness—nothing. Just smooth, healed flesh. Back home, we’d have killed for ointment like this. Might’ve saved a few limbs, hell might’ve saved a few lives.
“Not too bad for an Outerlander.” The voice hits me before the footsteps, familiar, teasing, Finn. I blink, head snapping up.
He steps through the doorway, all half-grin and cocked brow—like he’s amused, like this is nothing. But his face is too pale. There’s tension around his mouth, tightness he hasn’t figured out how to hide.
“You came?”The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
“Yeah, well, you nearly died. Figured that earned you a visit.”
“Well, good timing. I’m just about to be discharged.” I try for a smile—small, maybe even shy but it wobbles at the edges.
Rowan follows behind, quieter. His eyes skim my arm, then flick to my face. “I’m so sorry, Lyra. I should’ve seen it coming.”
“No,” I say quickly. “Don’t do that. None of us realised what she was up to.”
Then Ezzy steps through the doorway, closing the door behind her, and everything inside me locks tight. She hesitates at first, like she’s not sure if she belongs here. Her arms are crossedtight, jaw clenched, and she won’t meet my eyes. But it’s not indifference. It’s something else, worry she doesn’t know how to carry.
The boys go still; they feel it too, that shift in the air. That quiet, heavy tension that hums under the skin and saysthis isn’t okay yet.
I swallow hard. God, I thought I’d have more time, time to figure out what to say to them—how to spin it, soften it, make it sound less like betrayal and more like survival. More time to line the words up so they might forgive me. I could try and avoid it a bit longer? Make small talk, ignore the guilt, the truth, clawing its way up my throat.
But what's the use? Waiting might buy me a bit more safety, but it also buys me silence. And I’ve lived there long enough.
I said I wanted to be different, to be more vulnerable, open. So I look to check the door’s closed and then I just start talking. All of it, I tell them everything.
Bumping into Talen in the tunnels when I tried to escape. His strange blunt knife, the truce. Interfering during Ezzy’s Demonstration. The fake relationship. Professor Strannt’s interrogation with the Truth Strings. What Beth told me—about Talen, his ex, her death, the magical connection between us. Everything.
The words spill out, seven months of raw and ugly truth, because hiding them has done enough damage.
