Mira stirred then, slowly lifting her head. Her eyes, red and swollen, met mine. A fresh current of despair washed over her face. She managed a weak, wavering smile, a grimace more than anything.
She pushed herself to her feet, movements stiff, and took a step back from the bed. Giving me space. Her silent understanding was a comfort, a small anchor in the storm of my own unraveling.
I moved towards the bed, each footstep dragging, unwilling. His hand, resting on the pristine white sheet, seemed impossibly still. I reached for it, fingers tracing the familiar calluses, the strong, blunt nails. His skin was cool beneath my touch, lifeless. I held it, tightly,trying to pour my own warmth, my own desperate energy, back into him.
“Dane,” I whispered, voice cracking, barely audible. “I’m so sorry.”
The tears came faster now, blurring his still face into an indistinct mask of suffering. I blamed myself, utterly and completely. I should have been faster. Stronger. I should have protected him.
My rage, an iron knot in my stomach, flared anew. Against the world. Against fate. Against whatever dark force let this happen.
“I promise you,” I vowed, my voice hoarse, thick with emotion. “I’ll find who sent him.” My knuckles were white against his skin. “I won’t stop. Not until I have answers.”
I would tear the city apart if I had to. Dig through every shadow, confront every lie.
I squeezed his hand one last time, a desperate plea for him to hear me, to know. Then, reluctantly, I released my grip. The stillness in the room pressed against my ears, broken only by the soft hiss of the respirator.
Outside the room, Mira waited. Her face was still etched with pain, but less raw now. I reached for her, drawing her into a tight, fierce hug. She folded into my embrace, her body shaking silently against mine. We clung to each other, grounding ourselves against the drift.
When we pulled apart, her eyes were fixed on mine.
“They found you, you know,” she said, voice a murmur. “Someone called for an ambulance—an anonymous tip. The phone couldn’t be tracked. You were both… just there. In the alley, 300 metres from the workshop.” She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. “Like someone dropped you there. No trail. No blood. No sign of a struggle nearby. Nothing where you were found.”
My heart plunged. Nothing?
My mind flashed back to the chaos, the desperate fight, the raw power that had erupted from me.
And then the Umbrakynn. The one I fought. The sigil.
“The Umbrakynn,” I said, the name a harsh rasp against my raw throat. “The one I… the one I confronted.”
Mira’s brow furrowed. She looked confused, head cocked to the side. “What Umbrakynn?”
Her voice carried a strange inflection; she thought I was talking nonsense.
“Selene, there was no body. No perp. Nothing. Just you and Dane. Out cold.”
The denial hit me hard, but my memory held its ground.
I saw him. Felt him. Fought him.
And the sigil. Burned into his neck. The stolen magic. The violent implosion.
Dread spread through me, more profound than any of the physical aches. My head ached again, a dull, insistent beat. The fragmented images stuttered behind my eyes: the youth’s twisted face, his eyes blazing with stolen magic, the dark tendrils choking Dane, the bone-shattering crack, my own scream. Then the raw, searing power, the implosion, and the sigil. Burned into his neck.
It was a brand. A crystal-clear memory of that last fragment of clarity before the darkness consumed me: the fleeting glimpse of someone at the alley’s entrance.
The missing body and vanished evidence painted a terrifying picture. The alley was pristine, devoid of any struggle. A professional hand had sanitised the scene, extracting every trace of the fight before we were found.
I turned from Mira, my mind racing, scrambling for answers. My body dragged, but my thoughts were racing, leaping from one impossible conclusion to the next.
The hospital was too clean, too sterile. Too contained. I needed out. I needed air. I needed to think.
I shuffled through the silent corridors, each step amplifying an ominous certainty. The hospital’s fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, sterile and uncaring. I pushed through the glass doors, stepping out into the biting dawn.
The air was still damp with lingering mist, but it felt like freedom after the suffocating oppressiveness of the hospital.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. A text message. My landlord.Pipes fixed. Flat’s good to go.
