Chapter 16

Sixteen

The air was still. Heavy.

Even the faint buzzing of the lightbulb overhead had fallen into silence, like it too was holding its breath, waiting for me to make a move. I sat on the edge of the blow-up mattress, staring at the floor, my hands resting limply in my lap.

I couldn’t cry anymore.

I thought I’d run out of tears a long time ago, but the ache in my chest had found a way to dig even deeper. My body felt hollow, a husk of skin and bones that wasn’t mine anymore. My heart had stopped feeling like it belonged to me, too. Owen had stolen it, torn it apart, and left me to sit in the ruins of what remained.

He wasn’t here. He wouldn’t be here until tonight – hours from now.

I thought I could endure the weekend—thought I could let the silence swallow me whole until he came back. But it wasn’t just the silence that suffocated me. It was him. Even when he wasn’t here, he was everywhere.

His voice, his touch, his smell . The way he looked at me, like I was something fragile and precious, when I knew he was the one who’d broken me in the first place.

I’d loved him before. Before all of this. Before I understood what he was. And now? I didn’t know what was worse—the fact that he’d done this to me or the fact that I still loved him somewhere deep down, where I couldn’t reach to tear it out.

What does that say about you, Kira?

The voice in my head was cruel and sharp, slashing at the edges of my mind until I couldn’t escape it anymore.

Pathetic.

Weak.

No one will save you. You don’t deserve to be saved.

I couldn’t breathe. My chest felt tight, every inhale a struggle, every exhale like giving up.

I don’t know when I stood up. I don’t know how long I wandered the room, barefoot, my hands trailing over the dusty furniture scattered across the basement. The remnants of what used to be a science lab surrounded me—desks with half-carved initials, shelves still holding forgotten tools and equipment, all coated in a fine layer of grime. Forgotten. Just like me.

My gaze landed on the shelf in the far corner. Glass.

I moved before I could stop myself, as if pulled by invisible strings. My fingers closed around a thick piece of lab equipment—a glass beaker left behind. The weight of it felt solid in my hand, heavy and cold. I stared at it for a long moment, the world narrowing to just this one thing.

The glass would shatter. It would cut.

It would end this.

I clenched my jaw, my breaths ragged as I lifted the beaker. It wasn’t hard to smash it—the moment it hit the concrete floor, it shattered into sharp, glittering pieces that scattered at my feet like fractured stars.

My heart pounded in my chest, but for the first time in days, I felt calm. My hands trembled as I knelt on the floor, carefully sifting through the broken glass until I found a shard long and jagged enough to fit in my palm. The edges glinted under the light, red-rimmed where I’d already nicked my thumb.

I stared at it for what felt like forever, my fingers curling around the shard. Is this what it feels like to finally decide? To stop fighting. To stop holding on to something that wasn’t even there anymore.

I wanted to be gone before he came back.

I didn’t want to see his face. Didn’t want him to find me and hold me like he did, whispering lies about how I was safe with him. Because I wasn’t safe—I’d never been safe.

But he kept you alive, didn’t he?

The thought hit me like a slap. I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head hard enough to make the room spin. He didn’t save me. He stole me.

I opened my eyes again, glaring down at the shard as if it could argue with me. My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out every other sound.

Just do it.

I lifted the glass to my wrist, the edge biting into the soft skin there, trembling. I held my breath, my vision blurring as the tears came back, hot and sudden.

Do it. Do it now.

The door slammed open.

The sound ripped through the silence like a gunshot, and my body jolted, the shard slipping from my fingers and clattering to the floor. I froze, my blood running cold as I turned toward the door, my breath hitching.

Owen stood in the doorway.

His shoulders rose and fell with every breath, his hoodie damp from the rain outside. His eyes locked on me—first on my wrist, then on the broken glass scattered around me—and in that moment, I swore time stopped.

“Kira,” he said, his voice low, dangerous, terrified .

My whole body trembled as I stared at him. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to see this. The air between us felt electric, charged with something dark and volatile. My knees wobbled, and I nearly collapsed back onto the floor, but I couldn’t look away from him.

Owen stepped forward slowly, his movements deliberate, his gaze fixed on me like I was something fragile and precious—something he was afraid might disappear if he moved too fast.

“What are you doing?” His voice was calm, but I could hear the tremor beneath it. The storm.

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move .

He stopped just a few feet away, his hands at his sides, as if he was afraid to reach for me. “Kira,” he said again, softer this time, almost pleading at my silence.

I looked at the shard of glass at my feet. My hand still ached from holding it so tightly.

Owen took another step, and the tension snapped inside me like a rubber band stretched too far. My body crumpled, my legs folding beneath me as I sank to the floor, a sob tearing free from my chest.

And suddenly, he was there.