Present
“Molly will be so fun to torture and kill,” Oliver says flatly.
“No.”
He turns his head slowly. “I’m not asking permission. I’m telling you what comes next.”
“Oliver,” I warn. “You promised.”
His jaw tics, but he drags a breath in. “That was before I knew you were hunted like an animal. Left bleeding. Where the hell was Blaine?”
He rakes both hands through his hair, palms down his face like he’s trying to scrape the fury off. It doesn’t work. He paces once, twice, then pivots like something yanked his leash and storms back to me.
“I can’t breathe picturing it,” he grits out.
“What they did to you. How they did it. It’s rotting my fucking brain.
You’re lucky I wasn’t there. I would’ve buried every one of them with my bare hands and smiled while doing it.
I would slice them open, mirroring every mark they put on your skin.
I’d record it just so that I can relive every second of their suffering. ”
I stare at him. What does it say about me that his words don’t scare me? They don’t disgust me. They warm me. He steps back, fighting himself.
“You don’t have to say more,” he says finally. “If you want to, you can. I’ll listen to every detail and fight every single instinct not to end the only one still breathing. Or you can stop, and we can leave, but I swear to every god that ever breathed—no one touches you again while I’m alive.”
I nod, eyes bright but dry because telling him doesn’t hurt; it feels right. “I need to tell you the rest. Then we’re done. Saying it out loud puts it in the past.”
It feels like I’m telling him something that happened to someone else. Because that Lyra is gone, and in her place is me. Someone who is stronger for what happened. A little more fucked up, but every day working through it.
His exhale is rough. “I may not strike tonight,” he says. “But I’ll never forget.”
I lift my chin, meeting his gaze. “Neither will I.”