Page 48 of Property of Scar

The word isn’t hers, but it lands as if it could be.

My jaw locks. No!

The refusal is immediate this time.

Final.

Because I know exactly what that step costs.

I know what she asked of me, and I have already paid that price once.

I force my hand down, force the connection closed, force every instinct that still reaches for her back into the place it belongs.

Then I push.

Hard.

The pressure spikes, violent and unbearable, as I rip the hollow free, tearing it out of every place it tried to root itself, dragging it back into the crate with a force that leaves nothing behind but absence.

It goes all at once.

The hollow.

The echo.

Her.

The space they leave is raw, oversensitive, my nerves lit like exposed wire as my body fights to recalibrate around the sudden emptiness. My lungs drag in air that feels too cold, too sharp, even though I don’t need it to breathe, as everything inside me settles into something that feels… quieter.

I stand there for a second too long.

Not moving.

Not looking back.

Because I know what’s in that crate now.

What I left there.

Then I step out and close the door, my body giving out, and I drop to my knees.

I register the iron bolts slamming into place behind it as it hits the crate, the sound sharp and final, and Bennett’s seal follows a fraction of a second later, white light flaring hard enough to burn through the dark before snapping shut with a sense of closure that feels less like relief and more like containment.

Water continues to shift against the hull, metal creaks and settles somewhere above us, the low mechanical rhythm of the place carrying on as if nothing just tried to crawl its way out of a human body and into something else. But the space immediately around us tightens, the aftermath of it settling into something heavier, something that holds for a moment before it starts to release.

I don’t move right away.

Not because I can’t, but because I’m taking stock, letting everything fall back into place in the order it needs to. Balance comes first, followed by the subtle recalibration of muscle and instinct after something foreign has been inside the system and then removed. By the time I push to my feet, the motion is steady, deliberate, nothing about it suggesting that anything has been taken from me that I haven’t reclaimed.

I’m aware of them before I look.

Both prospects move in beside me without being told, one on either side, their usual dumbass back-and-forth gone for once. The loose chaos they normally carry settles into something tighter now, attention sharpened and locked forward while the reality of the situation finally cuts through the bullshit.

“You good?” Rhett asks, his voice lower than usual, the edge of it tempered.

“I’m always good,” I lie, already standing.

“You were on your knees.”