He stopped mid-step. The air between us felt like it had torn.
“I’m not thinking about it,” he said. “I’m doing it.”
My jaw tightened. “Lazarus?—”
“We don’t have a choice, Salvatore.” His tone was calm, but I could hear the exhaustion beneath it—the edge of a man too tired to hope for anything else.
Something inside me twisted.
I wanted to laugh. To curse him. To grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he saw the truth.
Because this wasn’t courage.
It was suicide.
But even as the anger burned, I knew he was right.
Staying here wasn’t living. It was waiting for the dark to claim us one breath at a time.
Still, fear coiled tight in my chest.
“They’ll kill you,” I muttered. “They’ll killus.These trials aren’t salvation, they’re slaughter. No one walks out.”
“They’re not slaughter,” he said. “They’re tests.”
He moved closer, his shadow falling across mine. “We survived a war, Salvatore. We survived worse than this. You survived your father. The beatings. The bullies. Everything. You’re stronger than you think.”
I laughed, but there was no humor in it—only the hollow sound of a man cracking.
“My father used to tell me I was nothing,” I said. “That I’d die a worthless piece of shit. That no one would ever remember my name.” I looked down at my hands—scarred and blistered. “Maybe he was right.”
Lazarus crouched in front of me, his expression hard but steady.
“Then prove him wrong.”
His words hit like a fist to the chest.
“We’ve already survived the worst the world could give us,” he said. “We can survive this, too. Together.”
I looked up at him, and for a moment, I saw it again—that soldier I’d followed into hell once before—the friend who’d never let me fall.
But the fear was still there.
Not fear of dying.
Fear of losinghim.
Because if the trials didn’t take us, they’d change us. And whatever came out the other side—it wouldn’t be Lazarus and Salvatore anymore.
I swallowed hard, the taste of iron thick in my mouth.
“Together,” I whispered.
Outside, the screams started again. Louder this time.
And in the dark, I couldn’t tell which sound came from the halls?—
and which came from inside my chest.
