My mind spins faster and faster, like a rollercoaster nearing a drop. I want everything to stop, to slow down, but it won't.
"Evie—" Shadow starts from where he lays on the ground, bound and helpless. My savior, my protector, my everything... or so I thought.
"Don’t," I snap, my voice laced with a force I didn’t know I possessed. "J-just don’t. I need a second here."
Shadow said he protects the Nexus when he isn’t with me.
Or was that even what he said?
My head pounds, and the ground tilts beneath me. I’m about to be sick, right here, in front of seven monsters watching me closely, waiting to see what I’ll do next.
I try to remember what Shadow has told me about the Nexus. It’s not much.
Frankly, I tried hard not to think about the Nexus, because the idea of her made me feel small. Worthless. Just like how I felt when Dana dangled the promise of adoption in front of me, only for Mark to crush it with smug vindictiveness. Just like I felt when David would put on airs of being a proud, selfless father in front of the community or Jean, when I carried the darkness of what he did to me those afternoons we were alone in the house.
I learned so early not to trust anyone. The best I could hope for was to be left alone. Because I was never truly alone as long as I could trust and believe in Shadow.
But now, it occurs to me how artfully Shadow concealed almost everything about the Nexus. All I knew was that she was a human female he protected.
When I accused Shadow of abandoning me to be with the Nexus, he didn’t even flinch. He just said it wasn’t what I thought. And when I demanded to know if he cared for her, he didn’t hesitate. He said yes.
The pieces slot into place, cold and sharp, cutting me as they settle into an ugly truth I’ve spent too long ignoring.
I’m the Nexus.
But I need to hear it. Because there’s still that lingering, gnawing doubt. That tiny, terrifying chance that I’m crazy. That I’m Alice, wandering further and further down the rabbit hole of madness.
"I command you to tell me who the Nexus is," I demand, my voice rough, like it’s been dragged over gravel.
"You are?—"
"You are the?—"
"Nexus. The key."
The Guard answers in turns, their strange inflection still somehow unified. A wildness rips through me, like a small animal shredding my heart with tiny, razor-sharp claws.
"You lied," I whisper to Shadow, my voice a tight, trembling thread.
"Evie, no." His voice scrapes out, barely audible, torn between the electric torment of the net and a pain far deeper, one I can feel thrumming through the air between us.
"We must take the prisoner back with us," the Guard informs me.
Shadow’s eyes plead with me. Beg me for forgiveness. But it’s too late for that. Too late for him to undo this.
Betrayal stings like lemon juice on an open wound, burning through the raw flesh of my sliced-open heart.
How could he have lied all these years?
I gave him everything—everything I didn’t have to give. And now I've truly scraped the bottom of my being. I’m a rotten, hollowed out stump of a human being.
There has only ever been one being I trusted.
One being I put my faith in.
And it turns out he’s no better than the rest.
My fists clench so tightly my nails dig into my palms, blood welling beneath them. I could scream. I could kill. I could destroy everything.
