Chapter 24
Nyxa
Darkness tastes like metal. It seeps down my throat, heavy and suffocating, until even breathing feels like a choice I can’t make. I’m so tired. Too tired to swim toward the flickers of light in the distance.
It would be easier to sink. No bruises here. No scars. No hands forcing me down or voices laughing when I cry. Just nothing.
But nothingness doesn’t last.
The dark peels back and I’m ten again. My mother sits at the kitchen table, cigarette dangling from her fingers, her laughter curling to the man she calls her husband. I’m in my room, the door locked, praying the latch will hold. The smell of beer leaks in through the cracks.
Heavy footsteps. The door creaks.
“Mama!”
She doesn’t come. She never does.
The black swallows the kitchen, spits me out somewhere worse.
Myka’s shadow fills the room. His knee presses into my chest, his breath stinking of whiskey and power. Bitter chalk floods my mouth when he shoves the pill in, his palm clamped over my lips until I swallow.
“Mine,” he whispers, teeth grazing my ear. “Always mine.”
And for years, I believed him. Because nobody ever told me I could be anything else.
The dark rises again, thick and sweet, begging me to let go. I almost do.
Until I hear him.
Not Myka. Not the monster who raised me. North.
It’s a voice made of gravel and fire, cutting through the black like it’s glass. “Come back to me, Firefly.”
I feel it in my chest like a punch. North doesn’t say things to fill silence. He says them when they matter. When they burn.
The darkness trembles.
And suddenly I’m not on the floor with Myka’s hand at my throat, I’m in North’s world. His hand covers mine, calloused and warm, guiding my fist as the weight of his father’s knuckles settles against my skin. His lips press to my scars like they’re holy, like they’ve been waiting for him.
That night he claimed me, he looked at me like I wasn’t broken. Like I was dangerous and beautiful all at once.
I feel that look now.
The dark doesn’t like it. Myka’s face bursts through again, smug and close. You’ll never escape me.
But there’s another grip on my hand, stronger. Not his, but North’s.
I curl my fingers around his until they ache. My nails bite into his palm.
Not his. Not ever again.
Gunfire cracks in the distance, sharp as lightning splitting the sky. My neck burns with the remembered slice of a blade, my ears are ringing with the sound of my own plea—Shoot, Iron, shoot!
I see myself under North’s feet, blood slick beneath my hands, my chest splitting open with fear. His eyes closed. His body too still.
The dark tries to pull me back under. I push harder. Through the pain. Through the weight. Through every filthy word ever shoved down my throat.
Because if he’s out there, holding on for me… I’m not letting go first.