I hesitated. Longer than I should have.
Her gaze flicked up, watching every micro-reaction like a hawk.
“Yes. Sometimes,” I said finally. “I saw her sometimes.”
Her throat bobbed.
My ribcage tightened.
And for the first time since she walked through my door, I realised—
She hadn’t come here for comfort.
She’d come for answers.
Or truth.
Or a wound she needed to prod.
And she wasn’t done yet.
“I saw Warden Wild this morning.”
“Oh?” I sat carefully across from her, every sense sharpening.
“She wants me to stay away from you guys. Apparently you’re bad influences.”
I huffed a laugh. “She’s not wrong. But… will you?”
“She threatened to release my name to the general public.”
I froze.
“What?”
Seph just shook her head like she expected my reaction and was already tired of it. “She knows a lot of people hate my father. I don’t blame them.”
Anger slid under my skin like a blade. “I can’t believe that bitch would threaten you like that.”
“I can.” Her voice didn’t crack — but something small in it did. “It doesn’t surprise me. From the moment I got here they’ve been trying to make me bow to their whims.”
Her hands twisted together — tight, restless, almost trembling — and she kept her gaze fixed on the wall behind me, not on my face.
“I guess they don’t realise that truthfully…” She let out a brittle little breath. “I don’t even care.”
“Seph.”
She finally looked at me.
And gods — she wasn’t just tired.
She was done.
“What can they do to me, K?” she asked, voice soft and hollow. “What’s the worst that can happen? I get hurt? I lose my friends?”
She let out a laugh—sharp, brittle, the kind people make when they’re standing on the edge of something they refuse to name.
Her hands twisted in her sleeves like she was trying to wring the feeling out of her fingers. Her eyes were haunted in a way exhaustion couldn’t explain.
