Just faintly.
“You think that’s true,” he said. “But it’s not.”
“I feel empty, Kieran” I said. “Like I’m hollow.”
He lifted his head — not much, just enough to look up at me. His eyes were dark, sharp, full of things he never said out loud.
“I know,” he said quietly. “I know you do.”
Something warm and painful moved behind my ribs.
He reached up — slow, deliberate — and rested his hand on the mattress. Not touching me. Just close.
“You’re allowed to break,” he said. “Just… don’t stay broken.”
“I can’t get up,” I murmured. “Not yet.”
He nodded once, accepting the truth without argument.
“Then I’ll wait.”
He reached out to touch my face. Something he had done many times before. But it was different this time.
When he touched me, it was like the emptiness responded. Like my skin hummed.
Like something was moving beneath my flesh.
I was a null. I had always been a null. And I wasn’t stupid. I knew Father was trying to fix me. To give me some polarity to save his own reputation.
But this…
It was like something opened in me.
Electricity crackled over Kieran’s fingers, like I was a lightning rod, drawing it in.
I felt it enter me. I felt my skin swallow it.
I was stealing it.
“No,” I whispered.
“What is it?” Kieran asked, staring at his hand — no,staring at me. “What’s happening?”
“Stop touching me. Please.”
“Seph—”
“Please!”
I shoved his hand away.
What is happening to me?
The moment our skin broke contact, the crackling stopped.
Silence slammed into the room.
My breath rasped loud in the stillness. Kieran looked down at his fingers — twitching, glowing faintly — like they belonged to someone else.
