“You weren’t.”Kael’s tone cuts clean and sharp.“You were living your life.”
“He could’ve—” My voice breaks.“He could’ve hurt me.”
Atlas’s hand finds my back—not tentative, not hesitant, just steady and warm.“He didn’t,” he says quietly.“Because we got there.”
“But if you hadn’t—”
“We did,” Finn interrupts.“We did get there.”
Kael nods.“And we always will.”
I look at all three of them.
Kael’s eyes calm and fierce.
Finn’s soft and devastated.
Atlas’s dark and shaking with fury he’s trying to contain.
Something inside me gives.
Something deeper than fear.
Something older than adrenaline.
“I thought I was alone,” I whisper.
Atlas shakes his head.“You’re not.”
Finn lifts my hand, threading his fingers through mine.“You’ll never be alone again,” he says.
Kael’s hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing away a tear I didn’t feel fall.“Not unless you ask us to be.”
The room blurs.
Their faces blur.
Everything blurs.
And then—
I break.
Fully.
Completely.
Without holding anything back.
I cry in a way I haven’t cried since Denver—loud, shaking, messy, terrified, grieving the girl I was, terrified of the one I’m becoming.
They hold me through all of it.
Finn’s arms around my shoulders.
Kael’s hand steady on my cheek, grounding me.
Atlas’s presence warm and immovable at my back, like if I fall he’ll catch me before the floor knows I’m gone.
