2. Zyran
ZYRAN
Dinner is loud, too loud.
Not exactly the painful kind, just a tiny ring in my ears. It’s the kind that fills a house with sound instead of shadows.
Sybil made dinner, pasta, which means Raiden keeps hovering like she needs a bodyguard to protect her from shoveling food into her mouth.
Cyran is telling a story with both hands like someone gave him a stage front and center.
Slater, he’s eating like he’s been fasting for forty-eight hours, eyes sharp, shoulders relaxed, and completely silent as always.
And me?
I’m about to steal a roll.
Not because I’m hungry—I’ve already inhaled two plates—but because Slater’s guarding carbs like they’re gold, which is funny as shit.
I angle my fork toward his plate, keeping my eye on him, making sure he doesn’t look up.
Yet, the knife flashes so fast I barely see it—a blur of silver, a hiss of movement, and suddenly the tip is buried through my sleeve into the goddamn table.
“What the fuck?” I yank my arm back, the sleeve ripping. “Over a fucking roll?”
Slater calmly swallows his food, yanking the knife from the table without even dignifying me with eye contact.
Cyran, on the opposite side of me, nearly chokes on his coffee laughing. “Holy shit, Zyran. You getting slow?”
“Fuck you,” I shoot back, but my lips tug up in a smile, a chuckle coming out—it’s a rough, rasped sound that replaced my usual deep voice a year ago. Now I just sound like I’ve been smoking three packs since birth.
I lift my hand to my neck—subconsciously, my fingers brush the ridge of the scar, feeling the uneven texture of skin that healed wrong and tight. It doesn’t hurt, not anymore. But it does remind me of everything I lost in a single moment.
Cyran, my twin, notices, and his grin falters. “Hey,” he says, his voice no longer joking. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I grunt instantly, smiling.
Slater’s eyes flicker toward me—just once, quick and assessing, like he does right before he decides whether he needs to intervene in something. Being the oldest, he’s always taken care of us, silently but still. It’s a solid thirty seconds before he goes back to eating.
I pretend I didn’t see the concern, and he pretends he didn’t show it.
And like it never happened, the table is chaotic again within seconds. Cyran elbows the salt by accident, and Slater shoves an entire roll into his mouth. Sybil tries not to laugh when Raiden kisses her hair—it’s all normal that it should settle something in me.
But instead, it just makes the hollow parts feel louder and like my heart is missing something.
Cyran kicks me under the table, and my gaze snaps to his. He raises a brow in a, ‘you sure you’re okay?’ kind of way.
I roll my eyes, “just eat your food,” I mutter.
He smirks, spinning his fork into his pasta. “That’s a no.”
“I’m going to stab you with this fucking fork,” I rasp.
“Go ahead, I’ll cry and ruin Slater's food.”
Slater raises one brow without looking up, clearly unimpressed with being dragged into Cyran’s bullshit.
I try to smile, but the edges feel brittle and fake. The truth is small and simple—I’m not the same.
Not since the warehouse, not since I tried to reach for Raiden and collapsed in a pool of my own blood. Not since I stopped seeing her.
But I don’t say any of that; instead, I shove another bite of food into my mouth and pretend everything tastes the same as it used to.
Sybil breaks through the noise. “Zyran, you want any more?”
I shake my head. “I’m good.”
Cyran freezes mid-chew. “Okay, yeah, something’s definitely wrong with you. Turning down more food, that’s not like you.”
Raiden snorts and then quickly sobers up. “Leave him alone.”
But Cyran doesn’t care. He ignores our older brother and leans forward, squinting like he’s trying to do some freaky twin shit and read my mind. “Dude, are you depressed? Do we need to do a group hug?”
I flick a piece of pasta at him, but he dodges barely, and the red-covered pasta hits the wall. Slater watches the food fly by, then slowly, deliberately slides his plate a few inches away from me, like he thinks I’m going to try and steal his food again. He’s not wrong, but not tonight.
I smile, not having to force it all the way, before the weight settles again.
Even though the house is warm, loud, and full, I still feel like I’m standing alone in that warehouse with blood dripping out of my mouth and a stranger’s laugh echoing in my head.
Though it’s not a stranger. Not really.
I think about her every damn day. Even a year later, and her smile is burned into my skull harder than anything else. Her face still shows up when I close my eyes—her voice is soft and warm. It threads through my memory, like when she asked me if I’d see her tomorrow, but only she didn’t.
She probably doesn’t even remember me; I bet she even stopped noticing the door after a few days.
But me? I still think about her. The way she looked at me without flinching, and the way she took her time drawing on my cup. Even the way she made the quiet ache in my chest feel less like a wound and more like a heartbeat.
Cyran shoves his chair back, making a scene about needing more coffee, and Slater rolls his eyes, a tiny movement but enough to say ‘I’m surrounded by idiots’. Sybil wipes sauce off Raiden’s cheek with a fond smile.
I push away from the table, my appetite gone. “I’m going to bed.”
Cyran freezes near the coffee machine, dramatic as hell. “Okay, seriously, someone call a doctor; something is wrong.”
Dumping my food into the trash, I set my plate in the sink before flipping Cyran off.
“Asshole.” Not waiting for anyone to say something else, I move through the hallway, past the living room, and up the set of stairs.
The noise fades as I reach the top, everything becoming quieter and heavier.
I pass Rhys’ room, our other older brother; his door is cracked, and bright lights from his millions of computer screens shine through.
By the time I reach my room and shut the door, I let out a breath, not realizing I was holding it until now.
I lean against the door, standing there and staring at the wall before my gaze shifts to the bed that looks slept in but hasn’t been for months.
And on the dresser are all the cups she gave me; only the last one she gave me is now sitting by itself.
The little teacup, with a smiling face. I should throw it away, but I don’t, and I never will.
I cross the room and drop onto the bed, my neck catching slightly on the tight edge of scar tissue. I rub at it absently, feeling the roughness there, the constant reminder of what took more than blood and voice.
It took my ease, my confidence, everything that felt like me.
I close my eyes and let the truth hit in the privacy of the dark—that I think about her every day.
Every.
Single.
Fucking.
Day.
And the thought has only gotten louder lately, each day and every single second.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll drive past the coffee shop, just to see her smile. I won’t go inside; I won’t talk to her, not that I ever really did before.
I just need a glimpse of her. And maybe that’s pathetic, but I already know I won’t go, because if I do, I don’t think I’d be able to walk away from her.
Even if she’s the only reason I’m not fully dead inside yet.
Sleep isn’t happening.
It used to.
There was a time when I could pass out anywhere—in a car, on a rooftop, or on a shitty motel floor with a knife under my hand. Hitmen learn to rest fast and easy, almost on command.
But ever since the warehouse, since waking up choking on my own blood, sleep feels like something I’m not allowed to have.
I shove my face into the pillow and then flip to my other side, shifting around and then flipping back and then kicking the blanket off only to drag it back up.
The house has become quiet, the kind that is now inside my head and makes everything feel louder, like the house settling is a sledgehammer in my ear.
My scar twitches when I swallow, pulling at my skin—I ignore it, and eventually, I drift off.
My hand lies on the concrete, blood coating my hands, my own breath gurgling in my throat. The faint sound of Raiden yelling—but he’s too far away, and I feel too weak.
Slater’s boots slide across the floor, and then his body hits the column.
Raiden’s then being dragged across the warehouse?—
I jerked awake with a sound that I hope to hell no one heard. My hand flies to my neck, pressing hard against my throat, like I’m trying to hold the wound shut. Only the skin is smooth and wrong beneath my fingers, too tight and too rough.
Sucking in air, it scrapes through my throat like it’s being dragged through glass.
“Fuck,” I mutter, pushing myself up too fast, and the room spins for a second. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I planted my hands on the mattress.
For just a beat I sit there, breathing as if I had run up a hill for miles instead of simply waking up.
And what’s worse is the dream sticks to me like sweat. And then the house suddenly feels too small and too quiet. It’s like I’m still bleeding out, again.
Guess there’s no sleeping tonight.
I stand, cross the floor, and leave the room, shoving my hands into my pockets so they would stop shaking.
Down the stairs and through the living room, I make my way through the hallway, which leads to the training room at the end.
It’s my normal now. Can’t sleep: training room. Can’t think: training room.
And I never bother wrapping my hands; I want to feel the pain. I need to feel something.
So I bypass the gloves and hit the punching bag that’s hanging in the corner. Leather snaps back against my knuckles, vibrating through my arms—it’s good, grounding, and sharp enough to cut through whatever’s clawing around inside my chest.
I hit it again and then again and again.
Swing, snap, repeat.
The chain creaks above me as the bag swings wide, and I chase it, shoulders burning and breath ragged through my throat. The scar pulls when I twist, a constant reminder that I try to pretend isn’t there.