Page 259 of Maddening Fixation

Because suddenly I understood.

I hadn’t been punishing a traitor.

I might have been destroying the woman who trusted me most.

“Juliet.”

I stepped forward.

My boots sounded painfully loud against the concrete.

But she didn’t react.

Not to the light.

Not to my voice.

Not to my presence.

Nothing.

She remained trapped inside whatever nightmare the darkness had dragged her into.

My mind raced.

Everything I believed was beginning to collapse.

And there she was—the woman I had been so certain was my enemy, the woman I had punished without ever questioning whether I was wrong.

The person who might have been the only innocent one in this entire war.

I took one step closer.

Then another.

Her arms were marked with scratches.

Her hands looked raw from clawing against the floor and walls.

Her lips were cracked, her hair tangled and disheveled, her skin pale from exhaustion and fear.

She looked like someone who had spent hours fighting an enemy that could never be defeated.

The darkness.

My throat tightened.

Because I knew exactly what I had done.

I had taken the thing she feared most...

And used it as punishment.

I had placed my own wife inside her worst nightmare.

She didn’t even seem aware that we were there.

“Juliet...”