“You don’t get to be here right now. Leave.”
His head snaps up. “Kayla?—”
“You don’t get proximity by default anymore,” I say. “You don’t get to stand next to me while I work out what this cost me.”
“I won’t leave you like this,” he says, voice low, urgent.
“I’m not asking,” I reply. “Go.”
For a heartbeat, no one moves.
Then Hatchet steps forward – not toward Nightshade, but toward me. He doesn’t touch me. He just stands there, solid, waiting for instruction.
Bones shifts too. Honey straightens. Ghost’s gaze never leaves Nightshade.
The hierarchy realigns without a word.
Nightshade sees it.
That’s when it finally breaks him.
He doesn’t argue.
He just nods once, tight and contained, and turns for the door.
He stops with his hand on the handle.
“I will wait,” he says. “As long as it takes.”
I don’t answer.
He leaves and the door closes behind him.
This time, there is no need for the lock.
The silence that follows is different. Charged. Watchful.
I turn back to the room.
“No secrets,” I say. “No decisions made for me. If you’re here, you’re here with me. In the open. If you don’t like that, you leave too. Now.”
No one argues.
Good.
I move to the centre of the room and sit down, grounding myself in the solidity of it. The floor. The air. The bodies still here.
“I’m not falling apart,” I say, mostly to myself. “I’m choosing what happens next.”
The words settle.
Outside, the world keeps going.
Inside, the fault lines have shifted.
And I know – deep, cold, unshakeable – nothing is ever going to sit the same way again.
I WON’T LET YOU USE ME
