I press my forehead to the cold floor. Concrete. That much feels real. Or real enough to fool me for another minute.
Sophia.
Her name surfaces and immediately fractures. Flashes slam into me—her laugh in the Paris kitchen, the taste of her on my tongue, the way she saidNazarethlike it could rewrite every scar on my soul.
Then the blood. Always the blood. My hands covered in it. Her blood. Mary’s. I can’t hold the good memory without the horror rushing in right behind it, twisting everythingbeautiful into something monstrous. I’m so fucking tired. Bone deep. Tired of the war inside my head.
The compass tattoo on my hand. North. North is her. Was her. Has to still be her. Please still be her.
The thought fractures, splinters, bleeds. I see her face—honey hair catching Paris light, green eyes wide and trusting as she looked up at me like I could be more than the monster they made.
Then the blood again. Her blood on my hands, warm and sticky, her voice fading as she whispered my name one last time.Nazareth.Like forgiveness. Like goodbye.
I press my palm harder against the floor, like if I push deep enough, I can anchor myself to her. To the version of the world where she’s still breathing. Still waiting. Still mine.
Don’t let me lose her again.
A sound cuts through the fog.
Wrong sound.
Not Valeria’s measured heels. Not the familiar click of the food slot. Boots. Multiple. Low voices. People moving with purpose through corridors they have no right to know.
My brain tries to sort it—how many, how close, threat level—but the warmth drags at the edges, slowing every thought to sludge. Time feels stretched and wrong.
Metal scraping. Forcing. Something working hard against the lock on the other side of the door.
I push myself up, but the room tilts violently. Walls breathe and pulse like living things. The floor rolls under me like the deck of a sinking ship, and I slam my back against the concrete and stay there, breathing hard through my teeth.
Waiting is all I have left.
Waiting and the certaintythat whatever comes through that door will eventually wear her face and bleed when I cut it.
Voices again. Closer now. One of them sounds like?—
No.I clamp my hands over my ears, nails digging into my scalp. It’s too familiar. Familiar isn’t safe down here. Familiar is pain. Familiar is guilt. Familiar is the black hole that swallows everything good.
Thud.
The door shudders hard in its frame.
I slide down against the wall, pull my knees to my chest, making myself as small as possible.Not her. Please not her. Anyone but her.
Another impact. Harder. The whole door rattles. Dust sifts down from the ceiling in thin gray streams.
My heart is pounding wrong—too fast, then too slow, fighting the chemical tide that wants to pull me under. The drugs are thinning in places, letting raw panic bleed through like acid.
“Reth!”
“Ian?” I whisper. Or another hallucination wearing his skin?
I’m not close to the door. I’m against the far wall. But the room keeps shifting, corners bleeding into each other. I can’t trust what I’m hearing. I can’t trust anything.
“Step back from the door!”
I’m not near the fucking door.
The explosion comes without warning.
