Page 134

Their laughter deepens, spreading like rot through the room. Hollow. Icy. Certain.

“Then submit,” Clyde says quietly, his words smooth as silk but threaded with iron. Calm. Final.

The girl’s eyes meet mine across the dim space, wide and shimmering with terror. Her lips move soundlessly, mouthing some silent plea. Or maybe just a prayer. Her thin arms clutch her sides, trembling, her shoulders hunching inward, as though she could fold herself small enough to disappear.

My pulse hammers beneath my bruised skin, each beat a brutal drum inside my chest. And suddenly I’m her. I was her. I see myself huddled in the dark, young and shaking, knees scraped raw against cold stone, the taste of copper on my tongue, the echo of my own screams swallowed by walls that never answered.

I blink, and it’s her again. Still staring at me.

God, she’s so small.

A tremor runs through me, not from fear but from something deeper, older. A memory stitched into my bones. The helplessness. The rage. The hollow ache of betrayal.

Every part of me screams to protect her. To throw myself in front of whatever’s coming. To take it for her.

But if I submit…

If I break…

They win.

A bitter breath hisses from my lungs. My fingers curl into fists against the stone floor. My throat burns with swallowed words I can’t let loose.

“You don’t have to do this,” I whisper, not to Clyde. Not to them. But to myself.

The girl’s stare tightens, something desperate flickering in her eyes.

Clyde’s voice cuts through the moment, smooth and soft as a scalpel. “Your choice, Lydia,” he murmurs. “Hers… or yours.”

The chant begins again, low and thrumming, rising beneath my skin like a second heartbeat.

And still I kneel. Frozen between fire and surrender.

Clyde crouches in front of me again, his gaze sharp, unflinching. “You’ve spent your life fighting,” he says, his voice low but edged with steel. “Fighting us. Fighting the order that keeps this world together.” His lips curl faintly. “But now you see, don’t you?” He leans closer, the heat of his breath sliding against my cheek. “You can’t win.”

His words drip into my ears, heavy as oil.

“This is your last chance, Lydia,” he whispers, his tone soft, coaxing, lethal. “Choose wisely.”

Behind him, the girl’s sobs rise, jagged and raw, each one slicing through me. My chest tightens until it aches, until I feel like I’ll split in half under all of it. My body trembles, the exhaustion crushing down like stone, every muscle screaming for rest, for mercy.

But the fire won’t die.

The fire refuses to die.

I lift my head, slow but deliberate, the chain at my throat dragging tight. My lips crack open, my voice scraping past the lump swelling in my throat.

“This isn’t over,” I say. The words steady, solid, even as my heartbeat stutters beneath them.

For a moment, Clyde stills. The smirk drains from his face, replaced by something harder, colder. His gaze narrows into slits.

“It is for her,” he says quietly.

And then he stands.

The room erupts.

The shadows lurch forward. The men close in.