Chapter 11
ELEVEN
EMMA
The soft click of the door shutting behind him felt louder than it should have, echoing in the hollow silence of the room. I didn’t move.
Caden’s words lingered, hanging in the air as a heavy fog I couldn’t quite see through. He’d given me a choice, but it felt more like a lifeline, frayed and brittle, stretched out over a chasm too deep to measure.
Sean shifted beside me as the warmth of his arm still draped over my waist grounded me a little.
“Yer not really considering it, are ye?”
I didn’t answer.
He sat up, his weight shifting the mattress as he ran a hand through his hair. “Emma, whatever they’re askin’ of ye, it’s too fuckin’ soon. Rachel and her damn team can wait.”
I closed my eyes, his words washing over me like static. Sean was wrong, even if I wanted to believe he wasn’t.
And then it hit me: the world had been moving on without me.
Even when mine had crumbled to bits, even when my life had become nothing but pain, rage, and nightmares, the rest of the world just kept going.
I sucked in a shallow breath, the realization harsher than I’d expected.
My grief, my anger, my broken pieces… They meant nothing in the grand, chaotic scheme of things.
The earth still turned, people still lived and died, and somewhere, a future was racing toward us all, whether we were ready for it or not.
And with magi coming out of the closet on nearly every continent, it wasn’t just moving, it was moving fast.
I pushed off the bed, ignoring Sean’s startled, “Emma?” as I got to my feet.
The bathroom was small, sterile, the kind of place that made everything feel colder than it already was. I flipped on the light and shut the door behind me, leaning against the sink for support. The mirror above it caught my reflection, and I froze.
There I was. Same face, same features.
But everything about me felt foreign, as if I were staring at a ghost. My hair hung limp around my face, my skin pale, my eyes hollowed out by something deeper than exhaustion. I gripped the edge of the sink and leaned closer, searching for any sign of the girl I used to be.
How many times had I stood like this? How many nights and mornings had I stared into a mirror wondering where the hell she had gone? The girl who laughed freely, who dreamed of a future filled with light. The girl who believed in fairness and justice and love.
She was gone, lost somewhere in the blood and chaos and pain.
I swallowed hard, my breath fogging the mirror as I stared at myself. Maybe she wasn’t coming back. Maybe that girl was gone for good, but if she was, I wasn’t about to let the rest of me go down with her.
“This will not defeat me,” I whispered, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. “I will survive this.”
The words didn’t fix me. They didn’t mend the cracks or fill the void, but they settled something inside me. A tiny ember of defiance that refused to go out.
I peeled off my clothes and let them fall in a careless heap on the floor. The shower hissed to life, and I stepped into the scalding spray. The water hit like fire, stinging my skin until it felt raw, but I didn’t move. I welcomed the burn. Let it strip me clean.
Heat poured over me, beating down until the world narrowed to nothing but steam and water and the thrum of my own pulse.
The grime, the blood, the weight of days spent rotting in grief…
All of it slid away in rivulets. For a few precious minutes, I wasn’t Emma the Offensive, Emma the survivor.
I was just…a body under water. Existing.
I had surrendered to the darkness for weeks, letting it seep into me, bone-deep. I hadn’t fought it. I’d invited it in. Let it coil around my ribs, drown my lungs, thread itself through every shaky breath.
And I hadn’t wanted to climb back out. Not really.
On some level, I’d been waiting for it to finish the job. To take me under completely. No more fight. No more grief. No more anything.
Because it felt like whatever fight I’d had left bled out with my parents’ lives, leaving me hollow, gutted, and tired down to my soul.
But darkness wasn’t silence, it was a language I could learn.
As I stood beneath the blistering water, something shifted. The numbness I’d veiled myself in had been safe. It gave me the illusion of control in a life where I had clearly none. And it had kept me from making alcoholism my next great calling.
But it wasn’t enough. I needed purpose.
And most of all, I needed answers.
Answers to questions that pulsed louder than the pain. Who ordered my parents’ deaths? Who pulled the strings that put a warrant on my head? Why brand me a terrorist in the first place?
And for the first time since the night they died, air filled my lungs without crushing me.
Not because the ache was gone, but because the ache was starting to have some direction.
I didn’t need to crawl out of the darkness.
I could shape it. Use it. Hone it sharp enough to carve my way to the truth.
For a second, one of my favorite Oscar Wilde’s quotes flashed through my mind: the truth is rarely pure and never simple.
But for once, I didn’t agree with him. Someone was responsible, and I would find them. Seemed pretty fucking simple to me.
By the time I stepped out, my skin was raw, my hair dripping, but I felt…different.
Lighter, maybe.
Darker, probably.
Or simply more awake.
I wrapped a towel around myself and pushed open the bathroom door. Sean and James were both waiting for me, leaning against the wall like two sentinels. Sean’s arms were crossed, his jaw tight, while James looked more composed but no less concerned.
I raised an eyebrow at them, clutching the towel tighter. “Do I require an audience to get dressed?”
Sean stood straighter. “We wanted to make sure ye were okay.”
James nodded, scanning my face as though he was trying to read my mind. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” I said, brushing past them toward the bed. I grabbed a fresh set of clothes, the towel slipping to the floor as I dressed quickly. Their gaze averted, the silence heavy, but I didn’t acknowledge either until I was done. Turning back to face them, I crossed my arms.
“Where’s Caden?”
James tilted his head slightly. “He’s outside, talking to Rachel.”
“Good,” I said, firmer than I expected. “I want to get started right away.”
James’s eyes widened. “Emma—”
“I’ve already made up my mind,” I cut him off, holding his gaze. “Respect my choice or you can fuck off.”
James clenched his jaw, then nodded once, his expression unreadable, though there was clearly some disappointment flickering in it.
Sean opened his mouth to argue but stopped, letting out a frustrated sigh instead.
“I’ll let them know,” James said quietly.
As he turned to leave, Sean lingered, his gaze softening as he looked at me. “Are ye sure?”
“Yes,” I said, the word firm and final.
He didn’t push further, only nodded and followed James out the door.
I stood there for a moment, letting the silence settle over me again.
The world might’ve been moving too fast, but no way in hell was I going to let it leave me behind.
I found Caden and Rachel talking in the hallway together, when out of nowhere a sharp pang of something strange shot through my chest.
So sharp I stopped mid-step.
The hell?
My eyes flicked between them, catching the way Rachel’s mouth curved easily into a smile, the way Caden’s posture seemed…lighter. Relaxed. Almost as if he didn’t have the weight of the world sitting on his shoulders.
The sensation in my chest twisted, feeling unfamiliar, and for a moment I didn’t even recognize it. My pulse picked up, too fast for something ordinary.
After weeks of solely feeling pain and sorrow this was…
What the hell was I feeling?
Annoyance? No. It was deeper, lodged somewhere under my ribs. Restlessness? No, not that either. It prickled, burned, made me want to step in between them and break the easy rhythm of their conversation.
Envious? The word dropped into my head, but it was so absurd I almost laughed out loud at myself. Envious of what, exactly?
It wasn’t as if I wanted to be the one standing there, laughing with Caden in the hallway like nothing in the world could touch us. I didn’t care Rachel’s smile made his shoulders loosen, or that I saw his mouth twitch into something close to amusement.
No, I definitely wasn’t envious of that.
Rachel was gorgeous, obviously—everyone noticed when she walked into a room—but I wasn’t the type to begrudge another woman her beauty.
Then what?
Maybe it was the ease of it. Their chatter flowing smooth and unbothered, unburdened, like the kind of conversation normal people had. Like neither of them was drowning in the past or tied up in impossible promises.
My heart kicked harder, quickening in a way that had nothing to do with logic. My palms tingled. Every instinct screamed at me to interrupt them, to wedge myself between their laughter, to pull Caden’s attention back where it…
Where it what? Where it belongs?
I shook my head, annoyed with myself. What the hell is going on with me?
Clearly all this grief had cracked something open inside me, letting everything spill out in ways I couldn’t predict. The harder I tried to shove the emotions back down, the stranger they came out, crooked, sideways, showing up where they didn’t belong.
“I heard you needed my assistance,” I said loudly, stepping forward and wedging myself neatly between them.
Rachel’s smile was warm and easy. “I’m glad you’ve accepted my proposal. We could really use your help, and we have a lot of questions.”
I tried to summon a smile back but couldn’t. My whole body still tingled with…envy. The word tasted sour, wrong, but nothing else fit.
Whatever the hell it was, I shoved the feeling down and extended my hand instead. “Lead the way.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Caden’s frown. His voice came low, meant only for me. “You okay?”