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I don’t sleep that night.

Anton drags me to one of his hideouts and makes me torture people.

Normally, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I’m good at pulling answers out of traitors.

But when Anton orders me to do it with my head still splitting open and my hands trembling every now and then from the pain, it stops being fun.

He could order anyone to do this. That’s the part that pisses me off.

He chooses me because he knows I enjoy it, and he likes taking the things that belong to me and making them his. Anything I love, anything I’m good at, anything that makes me feel like myself, he finds a way to twist it until I can’t look at it the same way anymore.

And I have to listen.

Because if I don’t, there’s always Alya.

That’s the threat he keeps dangling over my head, promising he’ll make her pay for whatever I refuse to do. Maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he would. I stopped gambling with her safety a long time ago.

There was a time when I thought I could fight back. I really did.

I don’t think that anymore.

By the time he finally lets me leave, dawn has started bleeding weakly into the sky, and I feel hollowed out.

Weak.

My head hurts so badly my vision pulses if I move too fast. There’s dried blood down the side of my neck and collar, and the wound at my scalp has been open the entire time, leaking slowly while I stood over other people and made them talk.

So the first thing I do when I get home is lock myself in the bathroom and assess the damage.

I set out what I need in front of the mirror. Then I angle the mirror, grit my teeth, and start stitching the place where he cracked my skull against the headboard.

The needle bites.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Each pull sends a little line of pain through my scalp, but I keep going. Once, my hand slips just slightly, and I hiss through my teeth, then keep working anyway.

Because what else am I going to do?

By the time I’m done, the room feels too bright and my legs are unsteady from lack of sleep. I rinse the blood from my fingers, stare at my own reflection, and barely recognize what looks back.

If Kento saw me like this, he’d be disgusted with me.

***

Two days later, Dimitri comes over.

He’s been doing that a lot more lately, now that Rei’s doing better, and I pretend not to notice the pattern. But I do. I really do. When Dimitri or Alexei are around, something in me settles. Not fully. I don’t think anything in me ever settles fully, but enough. Their presence has always done that. Besides Alya, they were the only things keeping me upright half the time.

Safe.

Maybe that’s the word.

I just know that when I’m with them, I never flinch if someone comes up behind me. I never brace for the wrong kind of touch, nor feel like I’m alone in a room full of predators, because if there’s a threat, they’ll crush it before it reaches me.