The words choked off. Blocked by something in my throat that felt like broken glass swallowed whole.
Sebastian stepped closer. Eyes locked on mine. Refusing to flinch. “Makes you what?”
“Makes me human.” The admission tasted like defeat. Like every failure I'd ever swallowed coming back up at once. “And humans fail.”
“Everyone fails, Viktor. That's not?—”
“I had a sister.”
The words ripped out. Tore themselves free from the place I'd locked them. The place I'd sealed with violence and discipline and the kind of control that only worked if you never, ever let yourself feel.
Sebastian went still. “What?”
“Sister. Anya.” Her name felt like shrapnel in my mouth. Like speaking it out loud made her real again, made her death real again, made everything I'd failed to do real in a way that sitting with it silently never quite managed. “She was fifteen when they took her.”
The silence stretched. Just rain and my pulse hammering and the weight of a secret I'd carried alone for so long I'd forgotten what it felt like to share the burden.
“Viktor—”
“Do not.” I held up a hand. Couldn't look at him. Couldn't see whatever was about to cross his face. “Do not say you are sorry. Do not look at me with pity. Just. Let me say this before I lose my nerve and bury it again.”
He nodded. Pressed his lips together. Waited.
I looked at the roses. At their pale blooms glowing like bones in moonlight. Easier than looking at him. Easier than seeing understanding or horror or any of the things I deserved to see reflected back.
“I was military. Special forces. Best in my unit.” The words came mechanical. Rehearsed. Like I was reading from a report instead of bleeding out my worst memory into the rain. “They wanted me tointerrogate a prisoner. Political dissident. Had information about arms smuggling, they said. I refused.”
“Why?”
“Because he was innocent. Because the orders were to make him confess to crimes he did not commit. To break him for propaganda. To turn him into a symbol.” My hands fisted. Knuckles screaming. “I told my commanding officer no. Said I would not torture an innocent man for politics.”
Sebastian didn't move. Barely breathed.
“They did not like that. Did not appreciate me questioning orders. Questioning authority. Questioning the machine.” I swallowed. Tasted copper. “So they found leverage.”
“Anya.”
“Da.” The word cracked. Splintered. “They took her from school. Held her for three days. Sent me videos every six hours showing what they would do to her if I did not cooperate. If I did not become the weapon they needed me to be.”
“What did they do?”
“Everything.” My voice went flat. Dead. The only way to say it without screaming. “They broke her. Slowly. Methodically. Professional torture disguised as interrogation. Asking her where I was. What I knew. Pretending she had information when all she had was my name and the memory of me promising I would always keep her safe.”
Rain ran down my face. Into my eyes. Blurring the world into watercolor smears that looked like the videos they'd sent. Her face. Her blood. Her screams.
“I tried to find her.” The words came faster now. Desperate. Like if I said them fast enough they wouldn't hurt as much. “Tore through every contact. Every source. Called in every favor I had built over years of service. But they moved her. Kept moving her. Always one step ahead because they knew me. Knew how I thought. Knew exactly how to hurt me in ways that would last.”
“Viktor—”
“By the time I found where they were keeping her, it was too late.”The words tasted like ash. Like failure. Like every moment I'd been too slow, too weak, too fucking human to save the one person who mattered. “She was already gone. Not dead. Worse than dead.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“No god in this. Just men with power and a girl who paid for her brother's pride.” I closed my eyes. Saw her face behind my eyelids. Always her face. Always that last moment when she'd looked at me and I'd seen that she was already gone. “They had destroyed her. Broken everything inside that made her Anya. Left her alive because that hurt me more than killing her would have. Because they wanted me to see what happened when people refused to be weapons.”
Sebastian made a sound. Raw. Hurt.
“She overdosed six months later.” The words came quiet now. Final. “Pills. Vodka. Bathroom floor in a hostel where no one knew her name. Where no one found her for three days because she was just another dead girl and the world is full of dead girls no one bothers to save.”
