I must shift my weight or show some sign because Knox moves fast, closes the distance in two long strides, and grabs my wrist. His hand is large and warm, his grip firm enough that I can't pull away. He hauls me back from the edge. I stumble, catch myself against his chest for a second. He's solid and warm, his heart beating steady under my cheek.
He smells like pine and something darker. Earth maybe, or blood.
I'm shaking and he's not. My legs feel like they might give out.
We're standing close now, too close, and he still has my wrist in his hand. I can feel his pulse where his thumb rests against my skin, slow and even while mine races.
"Don't do this again." It's not a request. It's a command, Alpha pressure behind it even though he's not an Alpha. He pauses, and something shifts in his expression. "And you don't want to disappoint me."
I nod because I can't find words.
He holds my gaze for a long moment, making sure, and then he releases my wrist. Slowly. Like he's not entirely sure I won't run back to the edge the second he lets go.
He turns and walks away, footsteps echoing on stone. Then he's gone down the stairs and I'm alone on the observation deck with the wind and the dark and the fact that Knox Wilson just saved my life.
Knox Wilson, who kills things, who breaks people, who doesn't speak to anyone.
He came here. He stopped me. He told me to make them regret it.
I sink down against the wall, pull my knees up to my chest, and cry for the first time since the betrayal. Silent tears, exhausted tears, the ones that come when you've been holding everything in and finally can't anymore.
I sit there until the shaking stops. Until my breathing evens out. Until the sky starts to lighten at the edges.
Then I think about what he said.Make them regret it.
The Dominion expected me to break. Nico catalogued my weaknesses like I was data to be analyzed. They all watched me fall apart and they laughed.
Knox is right. Dying for them is still letting them win.
I push myself up. My legs are shaky but they hold.
I look at the edge one more time. The drop that almost took me. The rocks below that would have ended it.
I turn away.
My feet take me through the building again, down hallways I'm starting to know by heart, and I find myself at the training hall without quite deciding to go there. The door is unlocked.Everything in this building is unlocked at night if you know where to look.
The lights are off. Moonlight comes through the high windows, silver and cold, illuminating training equipment and weapons on the walls and mats on the floor. I can smell chalk dust and sweat and something metallic underneath.
I look at my reflection in the mirrored wall.
Small. Weak. Nothing. The girl Nico made me believe I was.
But Knox said I'm not nothing. And Knox doesn't lie, doesn't perform, doesn't say things he doesn't mean.
I think about the chapel, the Dominion's trials, the dining hall and the pitcher of water and cleaning alone all night, the bathroom and my hair falling to the floor while they filmed it, Professor Harmon's cold dismissal when I told him I'd been locked in the chapel.
I survived all of it.
That means something.
An idea forms, cold and sharp and clear.
They want me to be nothing. I'll show them what nothing can become.
I walk to the weapon rack and take down a training staff. Wood, heavy, real in my hands. The weight of it is satisfying. Solid. Something I can use.
I don't know how to use it properly but I don't care.
