Footsteps scrape against the gravel behind me. A voice cuts through the night.
“Matteo.” Marco’s tone is low, careful, like he’s approaching a stray dog who might bite. “It’s done. You’re out. You can breathe.”
I keep my forehead on the bark. My knuckles pulse, skin raw. Words crowd my throat but won’t move.
Milo’s voice drifts closer, sharper. “You’re bleeding all over Leo’s favorite tree. He’s gonna lose his shit,” he jokes, but I’m not finding it funny.
Another punch. Bark cracks under my hand.
“He’s still down there,” Milo mutters.
“Yeah,” Marco answers quietly. “Still hearing it.”
They edge closer, I sense them, the shift of their weight, their heat in the cold air. Marco crouches enough to catch my eyes.
“You want food? A fight? You can swing at me if it gets you back.”
“Matteo,” Milo tries again. “Talk to us. Say anything. Or punch me. Anything but this.”
The crickets won’t stop. The chirping sound is still hitting me, and it’s fucking annoying.
I lean my forehead against the bark again. The tree is rough and grounded. I dig my nails into it like it might anchor me.
My chest is tight, and the only voice I can hear through it all is hers. Aoife’s.
That’s the problem. In that box, forty-eight hours in my own mind, I had time to think.
About everything.
About my bloodline. About the names carved on gravestones because of the O’Briens. About the war starting again, because they spilled the first blood.
She wears that name like a silk glove. Aoife O’Brien. She breathes in a world that stole from mine and every time I look at her, part of me forgets.
That’s what scares me.
Because nothing good can come from her. Touching her. Needing her.
She is an O’Brien.
And that name bleeds my family dry.
So, I split my knuckles to feel something real. To silence everything else. To prove to myself I haven’t gone completely insane.
I slam my fist one more time, and finally Marco grabs my wrist.
“That’s enough.”
I still don’t speak. Not yet.
Not until I know how much of me has come back from that room and how much stayed locked in the dark.
“Give me a moment to get my head out of there,” I ask them both, and without a word I hear them walking away.
The night has teeth. The air bites at my skin, thick with damp earth and iron.
“You finished?” Rosa’s voice cuts through the quiet.
She drops onto the bench beside me, the wood groaning under her weight. Her shoulder brushes mine, warm, steady, grounding.
