Chapter 26
It was my birthday.
I only knew that because Sable told me.
Because though I had lay in my bed for days, my body decaying around me. She had still brought me a gift.
A bracelet. One she had made herself.
Pink and green beads strung in a crooked line.
“It’s not as good as yours. But I tried.”
“It’s great.” I smiled. “I love it.”
She tied it around my wrist. It was big around me so she tightened it.
I hadn’t eaten in a few days.
All I felt was empty.
My father had done this. To me.
I knew he didn’t care for me. He had made that perfectly clear, more than once.
I never once thought he hated me.
Not until now.
“Knock knock.” Kieran’s voice came from the doorway. I flinched, pulling my blankets up.
“Can I let him in?” Sable asked me.
“I don’t want him to see me like this.”
“Seph you look fine – “
“I don’t.” I whispered, tugging the blankets up to my chin like they could hide the ugliness on my skin.
Sable frowned, her fingers tightening around the fraying sleeve of her jumper. “He’s been worried.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Me too.” I said.
Before I could protest again, Sable crossed the room and opened the door.
Kieran stepped in slowly, like I might bolt. I pulled the blanket tighter.
He looked around the room, taking in the mess — the untouched water on the bedside table, the tray of food congealing, the dark circles around my eyes.
Then he looked at me.
And froze.
“Seph…” His voice cracked. Just barely, but enough that I felt it like a bruise.
“I’m fine,” I lied, staring at the ceiling.
“You haven’t eaten,” he said quietly.
“Says who?” I snapped, too tired to be polite.
Sable exchanged a look with him — a silent plea, a silent warning. He ignored it.
“Your father shouldn’t—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off, sharper than I meant. “Please. Don’t.”
Kieran swallowed. His jaw tightened, like he was biting back everything he wanted to say.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” he said finally.
“I’m not.” My voice softened. “Sable’s here.”
He nodded once, like that steadied him.
Then he reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a piece of paper.
“I wrote you something. A song,” he said quietly. “I was hoping to play it for you.”
I reached out and took the paper gingerly. But he took it back. “No. Not until you get up. You can’t stay like this, baby Quinn.”
“Don’t call me that.” I whispered.
He smiled. “Ok. Seph then.”
Sable and he exchanged a loaded look and then she walked past him towards the door. She reached over and placed her hand on his shoulder. It was an intimate gesture. And he placed his hand on hers.
I looked away. When she left the room, it was Kieran and I alone.
He moved so he was next to me.
Not touching, not pushing — just there.
Like gravity pulling him closer without meaning to.
“Kieran,” I whispered, staring at my knees beneath the blankets. “You don’t… you don’t have to stay.”
“I know,” he murmured.
He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor beside my bed, knees drawn up, arms draped loosely over them. His shoulder brushed the frame — close enough that I could feel his presence like heat.
“But I’m staying anyway.”
I swallowed. My throat felt tight, raw.
“That’s stupid,” I said.
“Probably,” he agreed softly. “But I’m still here.”
He rested his head against the side of the mattress — not touching me, but close enough that I could feel the faint tremor of his breath.
I clutched the blanket tighter. “You should go back to Sable.”
He didn’t look at me.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
“Sable asked me to come,” he said finally. “Because you’re not okay.”
I flinched.
He let out a quiet exhale, almost a sigh. “She worries. I worry. That’s allowed.”
“There’s nothing left of me to worry about,” I whispered.
That made him tense.
Just faintly.
“You think that’s true,” he said. “But it’s not.”
“I feel empty, Kieran” I said. “Like I’m hollow.”
He lifted his head — not much, just enough to look up at me. His eyes were dark, sharp, full of things he never said out loud.
“I know,” he said quietly. “I know you do.”
Something warm and painful moved behind my ribs.
He reached up — slow, deliberate — and rested his hand on the mattress. Not touching me. Just close.
“You’re allowed to break,” he said. “Just… don’t stay broken.”
“I can’t get up,” I murmured. “Not yet.”
He nodded once, accepting the truth without argument.
“Then I’ll wait.”
He reached out to touch my face. Something he had done many times before. But it was different this time.
When he touched me, it was like the emptiness responded. Like my skin hummed.
Like something was moving beneath my flesh.
I was a null. I had always been a null. And I wasn’t stupid. I knew Father was trying to fix me. To give me some polarity to save his own reputation.
But this…
It was like something opened in me.
Electricity crackled over Kieran’s fingers, like I was a lightning rod, drawing it in.
I felt it enter me. I felt my skin swallow it.
I was stealing it.
“No,” I whispered.
“What is it?” Kieran asked, staring at his hand — no, staring at me. “What’s happening?”
“Stop touching me. Please.”
“Seph—”
“Please!”
I shoved his hand away.
What is happening to me?
The moment our skin broke contact, the crackling stopped.
Silence slammed into the room.
My breath rasped loud in the stillness. Kieran looked down at his fingers — twitching, glowing faintly — like they belonged to someone else.
But he wasn’t afraid of me.
His face was going white with rage.
“Seph…” His voice was scraped raw. “What did he do to you?”
I froze. “…What?”
“You didn’t do that.” He shook his head, wild, horrified. “You couldn’t have. That— that was forced into you. Someone put that inside you.”
“I didn’t— I didn’t mean to, I didn’t—”
“You absorbed it.” His voice cracked. “Seph, you absorbed lightning. My lightning.”
“I know!”
The hunger inside me — the one I pretended wasn’t real — stretched and yawned like a waking beast.
Kieran took a step back.
One tiny step.
Not in fear.
In shock.
In devastation.
In the kind of anger that made the air vibrate.
But I didn’t see that.
I saw retreat.
He was scared.
“Seph… you’re not a null anymore.”
“I am,” I whispered. “I am, Kieran, I—”
“No.” His voice was fierce, trembling. “Nulls don’t steal power. They don’t take. What you did—somebody engineered this. They did something to you.”
My stomach twisted.
“I didn’t want to,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to. It just—happened.”
Kieran’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped.
I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.
“What did your father do to you?” he asked, voice low and uneven.
It wasn’t fear.
It was fury.
But I didn’t hear it that way.
A tremor ripped through my body.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
A lie.
And not a lie.
Kieran stepped toward me—hands lifting like he wanted to steady me—
and then he froze.
He’d seen me flinch.
His hands dropped immediately, too fast to be anything but instinct.
“Kieran,” I whispered. “Please don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” he rasped.
“Like I’m… wrong.”
Something shuttered behind his eyes. Not coldness—something heavier.
“I’m just… trying to understand,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t,” he said immediately — and he meant it. “Seph, I’m going to figure this out, ok? Don’t worry about it.”
But I didn’t hear the nuance.
All I heard was him breathing too hard.
All I saw was his hands shaking.
All I felt was the distance.
He reached into his jacket — slower this time, careful like he thought I might break — and set the folded song on the table.
“I’ll leave it for when you feel up to it.”
He didn’t touch me again.
He didn’t risk it.
He nodded once—sharp, controlled—turned—
—and walked out.
The door clicked shut behind him.
And the emptiness inside me pulsed again.
Because in that moment, with my own power humming like a warning under my skin,
it felt like I’d lost Kieran.
Not forever.
Not really.
But something between us had cracked—
quietly, cleanly—
and I didn’t know if either of us would ever put it back the way it was.