K laughed.
Seph’s head snapped up, eyes blazing. “Do you have something to say, Kieran?”
He didn’t flinch. He met her glare head-on.
“Actually, yeah. I do. Your father is an evil fucking man, Seph.”
“Don’t start—”
“Don’t start?” His voice cracked like a whip. “Your father and his Pure Light Initiative—do you want to know what he’s doingright now? He’s rounding up dark users whether they’ve committed a crime or not. He’s shipping them off to Marr for his little science-house-of-horrors. And heabused you for years. So yeah, I’m going to start.”
“Oh, suddenly you care, K? Where was that care three years ago, huh? Where was it when you left me?”
“I told you—”
“You told me nothing, K!” Her voice ricocheted off the walls. “Nothing except that you had to leave. And I—” She stopped, breath hitching. “I looked for you every day. Every damn day. Hoping you’d come back. I didn’t even care if you didn’t feel the same way—”
She broke off, too late to pull the words back. K went pale.
“Seph,” he breathed, “what do you mean, your feelings—”
“No, K.”
Her voice trembled, but her stare was unyielding.
“You want to know what the worst part was? The thing that gutted me the most?”
He didn’t move.
“I could forgive you leaving,” she said softly. “I could even forgive you choosing Sable if that’s where your heart was. I know you loved her. But the silence, K.” Her throat closed. “Those years I spent waiting… hoping… not knowing if you were dead or alive… and you didn’t send a single word. Not one.”
K opened his mouth, but nothing emerged.
“It wasn’t the leaving,” she whispered. “It was how easily you erased me. How you walked away and it was like I’d never mattered. Like I wasnothingto you.”
K’s face drained to ash.
“Would you believe me,” he rasped, “if I said I thought about you every single day? That walking away from you was the worst thing I’ve ever done?”
Seph shook her head with a weary, bone-deep certainty.
“Those are just words, K. If any of that were true… you would have reached out. You would have fought for me. And you didn’t.”
The hit landed.
Hard.
K swayed like she’d taken something vital from him. Then, without lightning, without anger, without armour, he stood. Stiff. Hollow.
And walked out.
No storm.
No flare of power.
Just… gone.
Seph watched him leave, her heartbreak raw and unhidden.
