I wanted to find whoever taught her that word belonged to her and break their goddamn spine.
“So I made it go away.”
That hit me harder than it should have. Even knowing—suspecting—what she’d done, hearing her say it so plainly gutted something in me. The way she laughed—small, bitter, like the joke had always been on her—tightened something in my throat.
“Found a man who knew a man who knew a chemist. Paid too much. Didn’t care. The first batch burned like acid, but it worked. I passed for beta again.”
She’d poisoned herself.
For a job. For safety. Forus.
“After—I just… kept doing it. Year after year. I told myself it was safer. Smarter. That I was protecting my job. Protecting them.”
Them. She meant us.
I opened my eyes—just barely—and looked down at the curve of her shoulder, where her head tilted toward Jay. She was still wrapped tightly in the blanket I’d cocooned her in. Her body was flushed, slick with heat, but not trembling. Not fighting me anymore.
“I didn’t want anyone to see me differently. Least of all him.”
The last hit me harder than a puck to the gut. I didn’t react. Couldn’t. Not without shattering every ounce of calm I’d clawed together since this began.
She’d meantme.
And I hadn’t known. I should have. I should’veseenit. Her quiet strength. Her control. The way she never slipped—neverlet anything through unless she wanted it seen. I’d thought it was professionalism. Temperance. Maybe even pride.
But it had been survival.
Jay didn’t say anything, didn’t move, and that—gods, that was exactly right. Exactly what she needed. Not comfort. Not pity.
“Eventually, I started to believe the lie. That I was just a slightly off-kilter beta who got headaches and insomnia sometimes. It was easier than admitting I’d spent ten years poisoning myself to keep a secret no one had asked me to keep.”
I could feel her heart beating. The faint, uneven flutter of it against my arm. Like it wasn’t quite sure what it was allowed to do anymore.
“You say it like it was past tense,” Jay murmured.
Her answer came soft. Almost broken.
“Because it is. I stopped this week.”
And that—that—told me everything I needed to know about what we were really dealing with.
Sheknewthis heat would come.
She knew it would hurt.
She knew it might kill her—and she did it anyway.
“You knew what it would do.”
“Yeah.”
“You did it anyway.”
“Yeah.”
“Then you knew this was coming.”
“I didn’t know it would be this. I didn’t think I’d?—”
