Because the truth was more complicated than that. More twisted.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, and the honesty of it felt like ripping open a wound. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
Kyllian studied me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she stood up, smoothing down her jeans with a casual grace that made me feel even more exposed and vulnerable.
“Okay,” she said simply.
“Okay?” I repeated, confused.
“Okay,” she said again. “You don’t have to know right now. You don’t have to have all the answers. But you do need to understand something.”
She moved closer to the bed, and I tensed, but she didn’t touch me. Just stood there, looking down at me with those sharp green eyes.
“If you stay,” she said, her voice low and serious, “if you choose this, choose him, then you need to own it. You need to stop fighting yourself. Stop hating yourself for wanting what you want. Because that shame you feel? That self-loathing? It will destroy you faster than anything Nano could ever do.”
I stared at her, my mind reeling.
“But if you want out,” she continued, “if you want to leave, to go back to your brother and your club and your old life, then you need to say so. Now. Before this goes any further. Before you’re in so deep you can’t find your way back.”
“And if I say I want out?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “Will they let me go?”
Kyllian’s expression didn’t change. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “That’s between you and Morpheus. Between you and Nano. But I’ll advocate for you. I’ll tell Morpheus what I saw here, and I’ll tell him what I think.”
“What do you think?” I asked, even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
She tilted her head, considering me. “I think you’re more broken than you realize,” she said finally. “I think Nano saw that brokenness and decided to make it his. And I think you let him because some part of you wanted to be claimed. Wanted to belong to someone, even if that someone is a sadistic bastard who gets off on your pain.”
The words should have hurt. Should have made me angry.
But they didn’t.
Because they were true.
“I also think,” Kyllian continued, “that you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. Strong enough to survive this. Strong enough to make a choice and live with it, whatever that choice is.”
She turned toward the door, and panic flared in my chest.
“Wait,” I said, and she paused, looking back at me. “What happens now?”
“Now?” She smiled, and it was almost kind. “Now you figure out what you want. And then you tell Nano. Tell Morpheus. Tell whoever needs to hear it. But you be honest. With them, and with yourself.”
“And if I don’t know what I want?”
“Then you keep breathing,” she said simply. “You keep surviving. And eventually, you’ll figure it out.”
She opened the door, and I heard the sounds of the clubhouse filtering in. Voices, music, the clinking of bottles. Normal sounds. Sounds that didn’t belong in this room, in this moment, in this twisted reality I had found myself in.
“Kyllian,” I said, and she paused again, her hand on the doorframe.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. Even though I didn’t fully understand why she had come, why she talked to me, why she bothered.
She nodded once. “Take care of yourself, Alex. Because no one else is going to do it for you.”
And then she was gone, the door closing behind her with a soft click that felt far too final.
I sat there in the silence, the sheet still clutched to my chest, my mind spinning with everything she’d said.
