“I tried,” I said again, quieter now but shaking with something feral. “You think I just sat there? You think I didn’t fight? You think I didn’t plan every fucking day for how to get her out? I watched him inject her. I watched him break her. I watched him call her a null like she was worthless.”
I dug my nails into my palms until I felt blood.
“She was sixteen,” I whispered. “Sixteen, Dev. And I couldn’t get her out without killing her. Or getting her killed. You think I didn’t know Gideon would hunt her down the second she disappeared? You think I didn’t know he’d kill Sable for it? You think I didn’t know she’d run straight to me and blow every plan Elliot ever built?”
Dev’s chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths.
“You still didn’t save her,” he whispered.
I slammed my fist against the wall, cracking the plaster.
“I know!”
The words tore out of me like glass.
“I know I didn’t! I know I failed her! I live with that every fucking day!”
Dev flinched—not from fear, but from something that looked like grief.
I dragged shaking hands through my hair.
Dev’s jaw tensed, but he stayed silent.
“I was eighteen, Dev,” I whispered harshly. “Eighteen. No power. No leverage. No allies. If I grabbed her and ran, Gideon or Marr would’ve had a search team and a kill order on her within the hour. You know he would’ve. He has the fucking Council at his fingertips.”
I forced my nails into my palms until I felt a sting.
“She was sixteen. She could barely stand half the time. She trusted me. And I—”
My voice wavered.
“—I couldn’t get her out without her dying.”
Dev’s expression softened—just a fraction.
“So you left,” he said, not unkindly.
“I didn’t want to leave,” I snapped. “But Elliot had a plan. A long-term plan. He told me if I stayed, Gideon would kill me. And if I died, Seph had no one watching her. No one on the outside. No one pushing back against Gideon’s shit.”
Dev stared at me.
Really stared.
“And you think that excuses three years of silence?” he murmured.
“No,” I said immediately. “Nothing excuses that.”
Dev blinked.
Honesty from me always startled him.
I raked a shaking hand through my hair.
“You think I didn’t want to reach out?” I whispered. “I wrote letters. I just… never sent them. Elliot burned every bridge I tried to build. He said contact would get her killed. Or exposed. Or hunted. So I shut up. I stayed away. I watched from a distance.”
“And let her think you didn’t care,” Dev said quietly.
I swallowed. Hard.
