Page 108 of Shattered Obsession

I’ve never held a gun.

I was never supposed to.

My fingers curl around the grip anyway.

Damian’s eyes meet mine, and I see it for the first time. A flash of uncertainty. Not fear. Not yet. But surprise.

Good.

My hands shake. My body trembles. My thoughts scream.

But for the first time since that night, I’m the one aiming the weapon.

“I told you,” I whisper, each word slicing through the thick air between us. “You don’t get to own me.”

“Don’t you dare underestimate me,” I whisper, voice cracking but steady enough to make him falter. Xander wrenches Damian down to the floor, pinning him, but I can see the fury burning in his eyes. He’s seconds away from ending this, right here, right now. And for one terrifying heartbeat, I want him to. But this isn’t the end.

I clutch the gun tighter and stare at the man who destroyed me. He doesn’t get to win. Not tonight.

Something shifts inside me. A realignment.

For so long, my fear has been the loudest thing in any room.

But now it’s quiet.

I think about every night I stared at a ceiling, trying to convince myself I imagined his hands, his words, the feeling of being small and trapped and ruined. I think about how many mornings I woke up and checked every lock a second time, then a third and a fourth before sitting against the door because it still never felt enough.

Fear used to be oxygen.

Now I’m starving for something else.

“I’m not the girl you buried,” I whisper, though I don’t know if I’m speaking to Xander or Damian or the broken version of myself that lived in the aftermath.

I shift my grip on the gun. The metal trembles less in my hands.

“I’m not leaving this basement the same.”

And for the first time, I believe it.

-Xander-

Rage burns like fire in my veins, hotter than the blood dripping from my arm. Every time Damian’s face twists into that sick grin, every time he says her name like he owns her, I see red.

There was a night, weeks ago, when Thalia flinched from me in her sleep. Barely a sound came out of her, just a broken gasp, her body curling in on itself like she was trying to make her bones disappear. I held her, whispering that she was safe, but she didn’t wake. She just trembled until the sun came up.

I swore then that if I ever got the chance, I would burn the world to rid her of the things that lived in her nightmares.

Seeing Damian now, smug and alive and breathing in her air?

I want him erased.

Not just for what he did.

But for every moment after.

Every panic attack.

Every night she couldn’t sleep.