24. Chapter 24 #2
I don’t forgive her. I’m not there. But I’m not where I was, either. Slowly, I open my arms, and that’s all it takes. She breaks, a soft sound leaving her as she steps into me. Her hands clutch at my shirt while she presses her face into my shoulder. I feel her body shake with small sobs.
“I didn’t know…” she chokes. “I didn’t know if you’d ever—”
Her voice collapses completely, and I just hold her. “It’s okay,” I murmur, even though I don’t know if it is yet.
But she nods anyway. “Emma did it,” she says through tears, pulling back just enough to cup my face. “She brought you back to us.”
My gaze shifts, finding Emma without thinking, and it feels like my soul settles into place.
Yeah. She did.
Though I fight the urge to say, for now.
***
The room still feels weird. Not because it’s unfamiliar, but because I am.
I sit at the dining table, feeling like I’ve stepped into a version of my life that moved on without me.
The edges of my vision warp, and my chest vibrates with a kind of anxiety.
I glance down at my hands, noticing how they, too, are blurring.
The last time I felt this was at Alexei’s penthouse party when I went outside and looked over the edge of the balcony like I wanted to jump and fall to my death.
What is happening?
It should feel normal, but it doesn’t.
My fingers twitch at my sides, not quite knowing what to do with the absence of control. I flex them slowly, grounding myself in the motion, and the fact that they sort of listen to me now.
That I’m the one deciding what they do and who they don’t kill.
My gaze drifts across the room again, slower now, taking in the details.
The way people I don’t even know are helping the ones I love more than anything.
My stomach clenches at the unfamiliarity of it.
From the realization that this…this ordinary, unremarkable moment is something I almost didn’t make it back to.
I swallow against the feeling, my jaw tightening as I force myself to stay right here, in this version of reality. I don’t realize how quiet I’ve gone until someone says my name. I rest my forearms on the table, my fingers loosely laced together in an attempt to ground myself.
Rafe is watching me. His gaze is calm, like he’s cataloging every shift in me. “You’re quiet,” he notes, his tone casual. “That’s either a very good sign…or a very dangerous one.”
A small breath leaves me. “I think I’m just…here,” I say, and even to my own ears, it sounds strange. “Even if I don’t…feel it. I just—it’s weird.”
Emma’s hand finds my arm under the table, and I don’t flinch. “What does it feel like?” she asks.
I swallow. “I have moments where everything around me looks blurry…or not real. I feel like I’m almost in a dream. My chest will feel weird, too.”
She hums to herself. “That sounds like a derealization episode, Jude. It can happen after someone experiences trauma. It’s not permanent.”
“Okay.” I sigh. “Everything just…feels different than I remember.”
Micah leans back in his chair, studying me.
But before he can say anything, Adela shifts her laptop, drawing attention back to the reason we’re all sitting here in the first place.
“We made more progress,” she says. “We can see everything now. Every log tied to Alexei. Including photos and videos.” She glances at me briefly before looking back at the screen.
“But we still can’t touch any of it. Not without triggering the system. ”
Nico exhales through his nose, arms crossed as he leans against the wall. “It’s like standing in front of a vault with the door wide open, but the second you step inside, it collapses on you.”
Kieran nods, his expression darker. “This seems to be a hard one for you.”
Nico snorts. “No fucking kidding, guy. Sucks ass. It’s taking us forever, man.” He gestures to myself, Emma, Micah, and Heather. “And they have no idea what any of this is.”
Adela rolls her eyes.
But Alexei’s voice is already echoing in my head. His commands. His gross fucking laugh.
Erik. Aiden.
Henrik.
My chest tightens immediately, nausea surging. I jolt forward, catching myself on the table and forcing the vomit down. Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck.
“What’s wrong?” Emma asks softly, laying a hand on my arm. But I instinctively wrench away.
Blonde hair. Blue eyes. The clink of a belt. Television laughter bleeding through a wall. Hands, lips, bodyweight on top of me.
My hands tense slightly against each other, my jaw locking as the memory tries to take shape.
But it doesn’t get that far. I catch it, barely, and shove it back into the dark corners of my mind.
I feel it happening in real time, like watching a storm roll in from a distance instead of being trapped inside it.
My breath steadies as I force it back, staying here, in this room, with these people.
“I’m okay,” I say quietly, more to confirm it to myself than anything else.
Emma frowns, and I can tell she wants to touch me. To comfort me. But she doesn’t.
Rafe’s gaze sharpens. He saw my entire shift. He just nods once, acknowledging it without making it bigger than it needs to be. “Let’s focus,” he says smoothly, redirecting the room. “We have four days.”
Adela leans forward, her fingers tapping lightly against the keyboard. “We don’t need to break the system completely,” she says. “Not yet. We can map the triggers, and understand the logic behind them. If we do that, we might be able to control when and how it reacts.”
“Or redirect it,” Nico adds, his tone thoughtful now. “Make it fire on our terms instead of his.”
Kieran glances between them. “That’s risky as a motherfucker.”
“So is doing nothing,” Adela shoots back.
I sit back, blinking through the fucking trauma that’s trying to rip into my head. My mind feels like a maze. “I can help,” I say, the words coming out steady. “He expects me to sacrifice myself. Like I did before when I…” I trail off, avoiding anyone’s gaze. “When I left the States.”
Rafe’s lips curve faintly. “That’s precisely what he thinks you’ll do.”
I finally look up. “So how about I give it to him?”