Chapter 30 #4
“Elliot is lovely,” Ruth says, shifting the conversation with ease, and I’m almost thankful. Her gaze flicks toward Dawn.
Dawn immediately looks down at her tea, ears flushing pink. She doesn’t deny it, though.
“So is Kai,” Ruth adds, after a pause. Her voice softens, but there’s something else in it now, and she looks thoughtful for a moment. Like she’s trying to find the right word and doesn’t quite like the ones that come to mind.
“Just…” She trails off.
“What?” Lilia asks, frowning. “Just what, Mum?”
Ruth doesn’t look up. Her hands still. “Troubled.”
Kai
Sometimes I feel like I’m on fire.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically.
No. I mean it literally.
Like something inside me is burning. Skin first, then organs, then marrow. And lately, it’s been getting worse.
Every step I take, every breath, every word someone throws at me. The fire’s louder now—meaner, hungrier.
Every time I so much as look at Adeline.
God.
Especially when I look at her.
It starts in the chest, and it feels like a low, crawling heat. Like being near a match. Then I see the green in her eyes, the way they sharpen when she’s suspicious or soften when she’s trying not to care too much, and suddenly it’s an inferno.
It tightens around my throat. It claws at my lungs. And I have to remind myself, every time, that it’s not her I’m burning for.
It’s everyone else.
Her father. The person who’s been stalking her and leaving notes in her locker telling her to “stop looking”.
I knew it then. That it was all connected.
Truthfully, that’s why I got close in the first place. I played the part so well that even I almost forgot I wasn’t doing it for her.
Let her trust me. Let her tell me things.
And eventually, she’ll lead me right to the match that lit the fuse.
Then I can burn them with it.
All of them.
Because there’s a certain clarity that comes with being hurt enough. When rage stops being sharp and instead settles into your bones, takes root in the softest parts of you and hardens there. When all the shaking stops and your hands steady. When you’re not shaking anymore, you’re climbing.
And that’s where brilliance is born.
Not in the happiness. Not in the joy.
But in the unmaking.
People only ever listen when it’s their turn to bleed. So maybe it’s time they heard something.
Maybe it’s time they learned what it’s like to scream and not be heard.
To be carved into.
To be pretty and nothing else.
They did that to me. They branded me, in more ways than one. My body isn’t mine, it’s theirs.
And why? Why do they do it? It didn’t take me long to figure that one out.
Because sometimes beauty is the only language people understand.
I used to like it. I think. Or maybe I just tolerated it. Back when people called me “perfect” and “the most beautiful boy in the world” and used words and phrases I wasn’t even old enough to fully comprehend.
But somewhere along the way, it started to rot.
After my father sent me off like luggage, into that place. Into that orphanage that only made everything worse.
And now, I wonder how much of this skin is even mine anymore. How much of it is skin, and how much of it is their hands? Their fingerprints?
Sometimes in the mirror I don’t see Kai Steele. I see a used-up thing.
Dirty.
Pathetic.
Not worth saving. Not worth anything.
Beautiful? It’s almost laughable. They don’t see the rot under the skin. I’m used up. Hollowed out. Ugly where it matters most.
Whatever they think they see—it’s not me. It never was.
There are times like that, and there are times when that is overtaken by hate. By pure, fiery resentment.
Where I tell myself that I am not theirs to pose, to touch, to sell. That I’m not a body to brand or a face to frame. That I won’t smile while they carve pieces off me.
That I am not their fantasy. I am not their product. I’m a person.
And I belong to no one but me.
They’ll know exactly what I mean when I say I am done being beautiful. I am done being loved.
I am not here to be admired. I’m here to burn.
Addie
I’m not sure how long we’ve been driving—five minutes, twenty, thirty? Time’s gone strange. All I know is that it’s long enough for my nerves to twist and my heart to race.
We’re heading to my house. My house. And maybe it should hold some kind of sentimentality, but now, even saying it in my head… I feel nothing.
Nothing but an annoying, persistent ache where that warmth should have been.
Lilia’s driving. One hand on the wheel, the other fiddling absently with the volume knob even though the radio’s off. She hasn’t said much, and I’m grateful. There’s only so much small talk I can manage when my stomach is doing acrobatics.
I press my palms against my thighs and try to focus on the road outside the window. Rows of houses blur by, none of them ours yet. I feel a cold weight settle in my chest the closer we get.
I used to panic in cars. Completely freeze up. Couldn’t breathe properly. Couldn’t think straight. Now it’s… better. Mostly. Some days I even forget why I was scared in the first place. But today isn’t one of those days.
Although I’m beginning to think the panic is less to do with the vehicle and more to do with the destination.
I’m not going to pretend I feel okay, though. I feel sick. Light-headed, nauseous, raw in a way I can’t explain. But I’ve felt worse. And that must count for something.
It has to.
Lilia glances over at me, her brows drawing together. “You sure you’re okay?” she asks.
I don’t know if I nod. I think I do. My body moves before I make the decision. “I’m great.” The words are thin and dull, and entirely unconvincing.
Lilia knows it too.
She gives me a look. A patient one. The kind of look that says I’ll let you lie, but only because I know you’re tired of explaining the truth.
“Maybe it won’t go as terribly as you think,” she says after a beat.
And I want to believe her. God, I do. But the idea of walking through that door again, of seeing their faces—my sisters, my mother, whatever version of her is left today—it hits something in me that I don’t think has fully healed.
I stare out the window. My hands are cold, despite the heating Lilia had insisted on.
“Maybe,” I mumble. But even I don’t buy it.
Lilia doesn’t push. She just shifts slightly in her seat and keeps driving, her fingers tapping a quiet rhythm against the steering wheel.
It surprises me too, she’s usually so insistent on talking.
About anything, really. Today though? Today she doesn’t bother—or maybe she can sense it’s not the time.
But as we sit in complete silence, it doesn’t even feel awkward.
I let the quiet stretch between us again, trying to slow my breathing. One in, hold, two out. Over and over, until I feel like I won’t pass out on the spot.
Then, up ahead, the road starts to turn. I recognize the curve before I realize where we are, and my chest caves a little.
And then I see it.
The house.
The same, yet entirely different now that I’m really looking at it.
I stop breathing without meaning to.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” Lilia asks, tapping the brakes gently as she pulls up in front of the house.
I shake my head too fast. “No, it’s okay. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
My voice sounds calmer than I feel, which feels like a small win. Not that I’m fooling anyone.
I glance over at her and pull out a smile, one that hurts my face and feels completely wrong. Lilia doesn’t call me out on it. She just gives me an exaggerated thumbs-up, her expression somewhere between encouragement and worry.
I nod once, then open the door.
I barely make it to the gate before I spot two small black security cameras mounted near the porch. One above the door, the other tucked near the garage. Discreet enough to pass as nothing. Still obvious to me.
Liam. Of course.
He did tell me he’d put them out here, and I like to think I believed him when he did… but somehow actually seeing them is different. An in-my-face confirmation.
A concrete one.
My hand hesitates on the doorknob. But I turn it anyway.
The hairs on my arms rise as I step inside. At first glance, the place looks exactly the same, which somehow makes it worse.
Like nothing’s changed.
Even though everything has.
I barely make it to the hallway before Sam appears. She steps out of the kitchen, slow, hesitant. Her eyes land on me and she just… stops.
She stares.
And I stare back.
Sam looks—god. She looks awful.
Her skin’s washed out to the point of looking grey in the hallway light. The bags under her eyes are deep and bruised. There’s something fragile in her face, too. The cracked kind, not the delicate kind. The kind that’s one wrong word away from breaking entirely.
I can’t even begin to untangle the mess in her eyes. Sadness. Exhaustion. Fear.
Guilt.
It’s the one thing she doesn’t bother hiding.
“I—Adeline… what—” her voice catches. She doesn’t finish the sentence.
I offer her a soft smile. It barely lasts. “I just came to get my stuff.”
She’s still staring. Her eyes don’t move from my face, lingering on the side of it. The part that still hasn’t fully healed.
The cuts are fading now, but they’re still there. Still visible enough to say something happened, even if no one wants to ask what.
“It’s not nearly as bad as it looks,” I say quickly, brushing my hair behind my ear, even though it doesn’t actually cover anything.
Sam swallows, hard. But she doesn’t speak. She just stands there.
And I suddenly feel more exhausted than I’ve felt in days.