But my heart is still fluttering. Still racing. Still betraying me. Still feeling things I don't want to feel. Can't afford to feel. Refuse to feel.
And I can't stop thinking about the way he looked at me. Those eyes. That mouth. That moment when something shifted and the world tilted and everything made sense and no sense at all.
Fuck.
Chapter 9
Aweek passes.
I become a ghost.
Leave for class. Come back. Lock my door. Leave for work at the bookstore. Come back. Lock my door.
The routine becomes armor. Wake up. Avoid eye contact in the hallway. Pretend the brothers don't exist. Pretend I don't exist.
I don't eat with them. Don't talk to them. Don't exist in their space unless I absolutely have to.
Margot tries. She knocks. Soft, tentative raps that make guilt coil in my stomach. Leaves food outside my door. Tupperware containers that go cold while I stare at my laptop screen, unable to focus. Sends texts that I read but don't answer.
Sweetheart, I'm worried about you.
Please talk to me.
Just let me know you're okay.
I'm not okay.
But I can't tell her that.
My hands heal slowly. The bandages come off after three days, replaced with smaller ones. Then just band-aids. Then nothing.
The scars remain. Pale. Raised. When I flex my fingers, the skin pulls tight, a dull ache that radiates up my wrists. A reminder of what happens when I lose control.
I catch myself favoring my right hand when I write. When I carry books at work. When I grip the steering wheel too hard on the drive to campus, knuckles going white around the leather.
I haven't taken a suppressant in seven days.
Nothing's happened yet. No symptoms. No changes.
But I can feel it. Like a clock ticking down in my chest. Like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing the ground is crumbling beneath my feet. Every day that passes is one day closer to—
I don't think about it.
Can't think about it.
It's Tuesday night when hunger finally drives me out of my room.
My stomach cramps, sharp and insistent. A headache pulses behind my eyes, the kind that comes from not eating enough, not sleeping enough, not being enough.
I've been living on granola bars and whatever I can grab from the campus vending machines, but it's not enough. My jeans hang lower on my hips than they did a week ago. My reflection in the bathroom mirror looks gaunt. Hollow. My stomach is cramping. My head pounds.
I need real food.
The house is quiet when I unlock my door. It's late—almost eleven. The kind of late where the house settles, wood creaking as it cools, the distant hum of the HVAC the only sound. Richard and Margot are probably asleep. Atlas is likely in his office. I've seen the light under his door at three in the morning more than once. Bane could be anywhere.
And Zero—
I push the thought away.
