Another pause.
His grip on the letter tightens.
"This will probably be the last letter from me."
The words land like a punch to the gut.
I see Sage's hands start to tremble.
"I don't know... I've been gloomy. My life... my life is a pitiful merry-go-round, and maybe I'm tired of the disappointmentall around. The rumors are beginning to circulate, that Omegas are going to get punished for not having a pack, and I've been here for years... there's no set of Alphas crazed enough to be with me... even temporarily."
Blaze has gone still.
Jett's jaw is tight.
And I?—
I'm trying very hard not to feel anything.
And failing miserably...
"Maybe this is my hope that you'll become my knight in shining armor, but let's be for real... fairytales... they're just hopeful dreams from princesses who wished for their happy endings when the reality set out for them is filled with dread and misery."
Sage's voice is rough now.
Breaking on the edges.
"I don't have much. My apartment only has the very few essentials, and I no longer keep them there. It's just me... and Aphrodite... my robot companion. No friends. My family gone... my brother is happy and away from this plague of death... and I guess... that's it, really."
The trembling in his hands is visible now.
"So... thank you, S.W. Thank you for keeping me going, despite my insanity. Thank you for reading the words of a broken girl who never expected anyone to care. Thank you for being my ghost, my pen pal, my only proof that the world outside these walls still exists."
He stops reading.
Can't continue.
The silence that follows is deafening.
We all stand there—four men who've killed more people than we can count, who've survived things that should have destroyedus, who've built our lives around violence and loyalty and the cold comfort of duty?—
And we're all thinking the same thing.
She was saying goodbye.
That letter wasn't just an update.
It wasn't just correspondence between pen pals.
It was a goodbye.
The last words of someone who'd decided she was done fighting.
"Her place?"
Jett's whisper cuts through the silence.
He's already moving—that eerie, liquid grace that makes him impossible to track when he doesn't want to be seen.
