Sand stinging my eyes. Heat in my lungs. A shadow over me. His voice in my ear. Sharp. Furious. Hands shoving me. Forcing me forward. Impact behind me. Something cracking. Weight. Screaming.
Not mine.
His.
The image fractures. It does not disappear this time.
It lingers.
Wrong.
My head pounds. My breath is uneven.
“You were not?—”
“I was,” he cuts in. His voice is harder now. “You took the hit meant for me. You went down. I tried to get to you, but they—” He stops. The muscles in his jaw flex. Pain. Old. Not for show. “You ordered me away. They took you before I could reach you.”
Everything in me rejects it. No. That is not how it happened. That is not?—
My thoughts stutter.
The certainty slips. Just a fraction.
He steps closer. Slow. Careful. Like he is approaching something dangerous. He is.
“You did not get abandoned,” he says quietly. “You saved me.”
The words do not land clean. They splinter on impact. I shake my head. A short, sharp movement.
“No.”
Yes.
No.
The world tilts.
My heart beats wrong.
The rage that held me upright. The rage that kept me moving when everything else was failing. It falters.
Not gone. Not surrendered. No longer absolute.
Behind me, I feel her. Close. Still there. My anchor. Her presence cuts through the noise. Steady. Unyielding.
“You left me,” I repeat. The words do not hold the same weight anymore.
He sees it. I see him see it. Something in his expression shifts.
Not relief. Not triumph. Just… grief. Raw. Unhidden.
“I thought you died,” he says.
His voice is not steady. Not like before. Not controlled.
“I have carried that every day since.”
My breath stalls. The structure holding my certainty cracks.
