Chapter 12
Twelve
Campus at night felt like a graveyard. The buildings stood tall and silent, their windows glowing faintly, like the dull embers of a fire long forgotten. Pathways that were usually crowded and alive during the day stood empty now, the only sound my footsteps crunching against the gravel.
I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t care.
My breath misted in the cold air, dissipating as quickly as it formed, just like every thought I tried to push away. The thought of the bond tugged at the edge of my mind, faint and persistent, a constant reminder of what I had done. Of what we had all done.
I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets, my fingers curling into fists. It didn’t matter how far I walked or how many times I told myself to let it go. Her face was there, waiting for me the moment I closed my eyes. The way she’d looked at me—pleading, broken, desperate—like I was some kind of monster.
No, not some kind. I was a monster.
The streetlights buzzed faintly above me, their flickering light casting long shadows across the pavement. I couldn’t decide if the sound was comforting or maddening. It was something, at least. Better than the silence that clawed at my ears when I was alone in my dorm.
Better than the sound of her voice in my head.
“You had a choice,” I muttered, the words bitter on my tongue. My voice sounded foreign to me, like it belonged to someone else. Someone stronger. Someone braver. Someone who hadn’t stood in that theater and let it happen.
I rubbed my eyes, the image of her on the stage burned into the backs of my eyelids. Her wide, frightened eyes. The way she stumbled back, her hands reaching for something—anything—to stop her fall. The sickening crack when she hit the stage.
My stomach churned, bile rising in my throat. I doubled over, gripping the edge of a bench as the memory replayed in vivid detail. Her blood pooling beneath her head. The way none of us moved. The way I didn’t move.
She looked at me. Even then, she had looked at me, like I could save her.
And I hadn’t.
I dragged myself upright, my breath hitching as I swallowed hard. The cold air burned my lungs, but it didn’t clear my head. Nothing could clear my head. Not when every step I took on this empty campus felt like walking through her ghost.
“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I didn’t mean for it to go that far.”
The words felt hollow, even to me. What did it matter if I didn’t mean it? Intentions didn’t undo what had already been done. They didn’t bring her back.
I veered off the main path, my feet carrying me toward the theater without thinking. My chest tightened as the building came into view, its darkened facade looming against the night sky. I froze, my breath hitching as I stared at the boarded windows and the peeling paint.
I hadn’t been back here since that night. I couldn’t.
But my legs moved anyway, dragging me forward until I stood at the edge of the steps. The door creaked faintly in the wind, and for a moment, I thought about going inside. About standing on that stage and staring at the stain that wouldn’t come out.
I turned away instead, my hands shaking as I shoved them back into my pockets. The night pressed in around me, heavy and suffocating, and I started walking again, anywhere but here.
I wanted to ignore the bond, to shove it away, but it was impossible to ignore. Always there, always pulling, always reminding me of what I couldn’t change.
I hated it. I hated her for existing. For forcing this bond on us.
But mostly, I hated myself.
“She deserved better,” I muttered, my voice barely audible. The words echoed in my head, louder and louder until they drowned out everything else.
I thought about the night in the theater, the way we’d all laughed like it was some kind of joke. Like we weren’t tearing her apart piece by piece.
Kael's sneer. Thorne’s taunts. Lucian’s smirk. Aeron's nonchalance.
And me. Just standing there. Just… watching.
“We had a choice,” I said again, my voice shaking. “We had a choice, and we chose wrong.”
My feet carried me toward the library, its tall glass windows glowing faintly in the distance. The lights inside were dim, most of the students gone for the night, but the building still held a strange sense of life. Like it was always watching, always waiting.
I stepped inside, the warmth of the building washing over me like a weight I didn’t deserve. The smell of old books and dust filled the air, and for a moment, I let myself breathe it in, hoping it might ground me.
It didn’t.
I wandered through the aisles, my fingers brushing against the spines of books without really seeing them. My mind was elsewhere—back in the theater, back on the stage, back to the moment when everything shattered.
She’d been so hopeful when she walked in that night. So fucking beautiful. I remembered the way her eyes lit up when she saw us, like she thought we’d finally accepted her. Like she thought this was the beginning of something new.
And we’d destroyed her. Just like I feared we would.
“We had no choice,” I whispered, repeating the lie I’d told myself a hundred times.
But it wasn’t true. We did have a choice. And I chose wrong.
Was the alternative that bad? The choice where she was mine? I sank into one of the chairs near the back of the library, my head in my hands. The silence pressed down on me, suffocating and relentless, until I thought I might scream just to break it.
I clenched my fists, the words tangling in my throat as the bonds stirred again.
I’d thought about leaving. About disappearing and starting over somewhere far away from this place and everything it held. But the bond wouldn’t let me. It tied me here, to this campus, to this guilt, to her.
But even that was a lie.
The bond wasn’t stopping me from leaving. I just didn’t deserve to leave. I didn’t deserve to forget. If she never got to leave this place, why do I deserve to?
The clock on the wall ticked loudly, each second dragging by like an eternity. I stared at it, my mind blank and buzzing all at once, until the numbers blurred together.
What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to fix this?
The answer was simple.
I couldn’t.
I pushed myself up from the chair, my legs shaking as I stumbled toward the exit. The night air hit me like a slap, sharp and cold, but it was better than the suffocating warmth inside.
The bonds throbbed faintly, pulling me toward the dorms, toward the others. But I couldn’t face them. Not tonight. Not when I could still hear her voice, still see her face, still feel the weight of her final moments pressing down on my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice breaking.
But the words meant nothing now—too little, too late, lost to the night like a breath that would never reach her.
And I kept walking.