Something in me snaps tight, and before I can stop myself, I’m standing right in front of her, rage simmering beneath the surface. “You’d rather be back there?”
“I’d rather be in control,” she fires back. “That’s something you’ve taken away from me, and you refuse to acknowledge it.”
“I didn’t take anything from you—”
“You took my choice. Every single one from the moment you bought me, leading up to now.”
The implications are heavier than I expect, and for a second, I don’t respond because there’s truth there.
A piece of it, anyway.
“I made a call,” I say finally, voice quieter but firm, silently hoping she’ll drop it. “One that kept you alive.”
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“Yeah, you’ve made that very clear,” I mutter, letting the silence stretch again, thick and suffocating.
She stares at me, then starts pacing again, pulling at my nerves in a way nobody else has before.
I run a hand through my hair, frustration building under my skin like pressure I can’t bleed off, well aware that nothing about this is normal. Nothing about her is normal right now, or the way I’m reacting to her, and that’s what bothers me the most.
Not the arguing, and not the attitude. Her. The way she feels in the room, and how I’d be even more irritated if she weren’t here.
“You’re going to wear down the floorboards,” I utter again, not really caring, but wishing she’d stop for five seconds.
“Good,” she mumbles, tone unrepentant as expected. “Maybe I’ll find a way out then.”
Something in me wants to laugh, but I refrain. I don’t need to encourage her.
“Not happening.”
She spins on me without hesitation, snapping back, “You don’t get to keep saying that like it’s law.”
“It is,” I shoot back. “For now.”
“For now,” she repeats mockingly. “God, you really love that phrase, don’t you? You’re unbelievably controlling.”
I scoff. “It’s necessary.”
“Everything is ‘necessary’ to you, so long as you come up with it. Every decision and every move is justified because you decided it was,” she says sarcastically, but not entirely wrong, either.
“That’s how leadership works.”
“I don’t give a damn about your leadership!” she growls out, voice cracking through the apartment, louder than before. And before I have time to react, something shifts. It’s subtle like a flicker at first, then the air tightens, just slightly, like pressure building.
I feel it before I see it, springing my instincts into high alert immediately. Bracing myself, every muscle in my body locks into readiness.
Naia freezes too, eyes wide enough for me to notice, then it happens.
A pulse, barely visible, but there, ripples outward from her like a heat wave, brushing against my skin with a sharp, unmistakable electric edge.
Magic.
My gaze snaps to her fully now, every sense locked in, and pure disbelief moves through me. “What the hell was that?”
She blinks and looks down at her hands like she’s seeing them for the first time. As if she’s just as caught off guard as I am. “I—”
The air crackles in the air between us, subtle but undeniable, and my pulse picks up through every ripple of energy. Alarms go off in my mind, reminding me to be careful and not to let her use this against me.
