Unclaimed.
Unbreakable.
I stay there.
Curled against cold steel.
Holding forgiveness I never earned.
And for the first time in my life—
I don’t hate myself for refusing to let it go.
Their Walls Finally Fall (Emotionally)
I slide down the wall like gravity finally remembers me.
Like my bones surrender.
My knees hit first. Then my shoulder. Then my cheek sinks into cold concrete that smells like rust and damp and secrets.
I curl inward automatically.
Protective.Feral.Small.
Instinct.
The corridor carries sound like a whisper-tunnel, every breath magnified, every movement intimate in this underground throat of the fortress.
And I hear it—
A shift.
A scrape.
The mirror of me on the other side.
He sinks too.
Slow.
Heavy.
Like a man who has finally allowed himself to fall.
We end up the same without seeing each other.
Back to back through steel and stone and Rivas blood.
Two bodies braced against the same invisible wound.
I draw my knees into my chest, arms locking around my shins, breath sawing in shallow contradictions of air. My spine presses into the wall like I could collapse right through to him if I leaned hard enough.
And then—
I feel it.
Not with my hands.Not with my eyes.
