I barely have time to pull back before Marie storms out, nearly colliding with me. We stop inches apart.
Her eyes widen when she realizes I've heard it.
For a heartbeat, she just stares at me—anger, humiliation, and something like panic flickering across her face. I smell it then, sharp and bitter, her insecurity bleeding through.
Then her mouth twists.
She doesn't say anything.
She doesn't need to.
She brushes past me hard enough that her shoulder clips mine. Her footsteps pound down the hallway, and a moment later her bedroom door slams shut with a force that rattles the pictures on the wall.
The sound echoes through the house.
I stand there long after, heart racing, breath shallow.Because of Vee. Before she's ready.
I don't know how to feel.
Guilt curls tight in my chest—heavy and familiar. If I weren't here, if I weren't broken, if I weren't slowing everything down, none of this would be happening.
And beneath that guilt, something else stirs.
Relief.
The realization makes my stomach churn. Relief that he didn't say she was right. Relief that he didn't agree to send me away. Relief that, at least for now, he isn't willing to move forward without me.
I don't know what that means.
I don't know if it makes me safer—or puts a target on my back.
I step away from the office door quietly. I don't want him to know I heard.
I move down the hallway on unsteady legs.
Marie's door remains closed, the echo of it still lingering.
And somewhere behind me, Ragon is alone with a choice he's already made—one that seems to circle back to me no matter how hard I try to step out of its path.
***
The pounding drags me out of sleep like a hand around my throat.
Not a knock—pounding. Heavy, urgent, relentless. The sound hits my nervous system first, and my body reacts before I even understand what's happening. I jerk upright in my chair so hard the wooden legs scrape against the floor. My book slides off my lap.
For a second, I don't know where I am.
My room is dim. My neck aches from the angle I'd been sleeping at. My heart is already sprinting.
The pounding comes again, louder, more insistent.
My stomach drops.
I sit there frozen, every muscle tight with the certainty that something is wrong.
Then I hear movement—footsteps in the hall, quick and purposeful. Low voices. The house waking all at once.
I swing my feet to the floor, moving quietly on instinct. I tell myself to stay in my room.
