I rubbed my hands over my face, dragging them down slowly, fingers catching against my skin. No. That’s not true. It can’t be. Because if it is, then none of this was avoidable. And I don’t want to believe that. I don’t want to believe I never had a chance. So I pushed it the other way. Forced it. Looked at it from a different angle.
What if he didn’t find me?
What if I never met him?
The images shifted, changed. Got uglier in a different way, but they weren’t this. They weren’thim.And that’s when it started. Small, a thought I didn’t correct. It wasn’t just the things he did, it was everything around it. Every time he stepped in, every time he decided something for me, every time he said it was for my own good, every time I let him.
My jaw tightened so hard my teeth hurt, my fingers curled into my palms. Because if I really looked at it, it didn’t feel like something that just happened. It felt shaped. Guided even,pushed. Like I’d been nudged, again and again, into becoming exactly what I had become. And him standing there the whole time, watching it happen. Encouraging it. Calling it something else, calling it necessary. Calling itthe right thing.
My chest tightened with something sharp and hot, like a blade from a knife but on fire. I sat up straighter, my shoulders pulling back, my spine stiff. Because if that’s true, if even a part of that is true, then this isn’t just on me. And I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know where to put it. Because it doesn’t make anything better, it just changes who I aim it at.
My tongue pressed against the inside of my cheek, hard enough to ground me for a second.
Zwierek.
The name sat heavier then and I couldn’t tell if that made it easier or worse. Probably worse. It’s always worse when things start to make sense. I couldn’t stay in that room. If I did, I would’ve sunk deeper into it and I could already feel how easy it would be to just… stop there. Let the thoughts finish what they started. Let them close in and do the rest for me. But no, not yet, there was still something unfinished. You remember, don’t you, little Ghost?
That feeling right before everything snaps. Not the breaking itself, no, that part comes fast, but the seconds before. Where something inside you tightens so much you almost expect to hear it crack. That’s where I was. I pushed myself up, joints stiff, body lagging a second behind what my head had already decided. My feet hit the floor and I just stood there for a moment, staring at nothing, letting that tightness build instead of pushing it down this time. Then I moved, tossed on some clothes I had lying on the floor and put on my boots, then out to the hallway.
It felt colder than it had before, or maybe I just noticed it more because my body was on fire. My shoulder brushed lightlyagainst the wall as I walked, fingertips grazing along the surface without thinking, like I needed something solid to anchor myself to. I stepped into the living room and stopped.
Zwierek was there.
Back half turned to me, crouched slightly over the table, hands moving with a kind of calm that didn’t match anything else in the room. There was a bag open in front of him, dark, worn, already half filled. I didn’t say anything at first, I just observed. Watched his hands, the way he moved. A coil of rope disappeared into the bag, placed, like it had a purpose already decided. Something metallic followed, then something else I didn’t immediately recognize, but I didn’t need to. I knew the pattern, I knew what that was.
“What are you doing?”My voice came out lower than I expected. Zwierek didn’t turn, didn’t even pause. His hand kept moving, adjusting something inside the bag before he spoke, tone flat, almost bored.
“Going out to finish what you apparently couldn’t.”Something deep in my spine twisted, slow and ugly. I took a step further into the room.
“Are you going to my father?”This time he didn’t answer immediately. He zipped part of the bag closed, tested it with a short tug.
“Yeah.”Just that. Yeah. Like it was nothing, like it didn’t matter. My hands curled into fists at my sides.
“You don’t get to do that.”My voice came out harsher, no longer controlled.“That’s my father, not yours, Zwierek. There’s nothing to finish, no revenge to take and even if there was, it wouldn’t be yours to take.”
He stopped, finally. The bag hit the table, hard. The sound cracked through the room, loud enough to make something in my chest jolt in response. Zwierek’s hands stayed on it for a second, fingers spread against the fabric, knuckles pale wherethe pressure built. Then he straightened slightly and looked at me, really looked this time. There wasn’t anything casual left in his face. No distance, it was all there now, every bit of it. Bare, unhidden. And it wasn’t just anger, it was worse than that, because anger burns out and this didn’t feel like it would. My pulse kicked harder against my ribs, but I didn’t move, didn’t step back, didn’t break the space between us. I let it come, finally fucking come.
“Not yours to take?”He let out something between a laugh and a breath, but there was nothing amused in it. Nothing human, almost.“I fucking made you.”The words dragged, heavy but welcomed.
“Everything you are, everything you have, came from me, Rowan.”His voice dropped lower, rougher, like something was tearing its way through it.“You wouldn’t even be standing here if it wasn’t for me.”And something inside me just fucking snapped.
"Exactly, Zwierek!”It ripped out of me. Tore out of my chest so hard it burned on the way up, left my throat raw as it hit the air between us.
The room went dead still, but inside, it was chaos. It felt like something had been lit under my skin, like my veins were carrying heat instead of blood, too fast, too much, my pulse slamming so hard I could hear it, this dull rushing in my ears, like something closing in from all sides. I didn’t look away from him. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
“Exactly,”I said again, but my voice didn’t match what was happening inside of me anymore. It dropped, cold in a way that didn’t feel natural.“That’s exactly what you fucking did.”
I could feel it, that line, and I stepped over it without even thinking about it.“You know what’s funny?”My head tilted, eyes locked on him, watching him properly now, not the versionI’d held onto before, not the one I needed him to be, but the real one.“You were never better than me, Zwierek.”
The words came one at a time, heavy enough that I could feel them building.
“I just thought you were.”He didn’t interrupt, but I saw it. The way his eyes narrowed just a fraction, the way something in his jaw tightened, muscles pulling under his skin.
“You were worse, actually,”I continued, my voice steady now.
“Now that I think about it.”The air between us felt thick enough to choke on.“You remember that room?”
I didn’t wait for him to answer.
