Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
-Thalia-
The room smells like violence, sweat, and blood. My head throbs. There’s a buzzing in my ears, loud enough to drown out my own heartbeat.
I tug against the handcuffs, testing them again even though I know they won’t budge. They bite deeper, as if mocking my desperation. Damian prepared this place. He planned to bring me back here.
A wave of nausea hits me so sharply I have to squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be in this body. If I could peel my skin off and escape myself, I would.
But then I hear Xander snarl, low and full of violence.
And I remember I’m not alone.
Boots slam against concrete, followed by a sharp grunt.
A crash rattles the walls so hard the cuffs bite deeper into my wrists.
When I open my eyes through the blur of pain, I see them.
Xander and Damian, locked together like animals.
Xander’s face is carved in fury, every muscle alive with rage.
His knife gleams in one hand, but Damian is faster than I thought, heavier too.
He swings wildly, and when his fist connects with Xander’s ribs, the noise Xander makes is something I’ve never heard before—a strangled growl, not in pain, not yet, but close.
“Don’t touch him!” My voice breaks raw against the basement air, but neither of them stop. Damian’s knife flashes, slicing through Xander’s sleeve, leaving a red trail across his arm. Blood blooms fast. “No, please!”
Xander doesn’t falter. He doesn’t even seem to feel the pain, not the blood slicking his arm, not the bruises forming across his ribs. His focus is razor-sharp, murderous.
But the second his eyes flick toward me, something inside him fractures. The rage is still there, but underneath it is something rawer. Something that looks like fear.
I know that look. I’ve worn it.
His gaze drags down the length of the chains, to the bruises blooming on my wrists, to the way my chest heaves unevenly as I fight against my own panic. He inhales sharply like the sight physically hits him.
His voice breaks, just a crack, when he says my name.
“Thalia…”
Damian takes advantage of the distraction, slamming his shoulder into Xander’s stomach. But instead of stumbling, Xander becomes something feral. He launches forward with a snarl that isn’t human.
I’ve never seen someone fight like they were born for violence, but Xander doesn’t move like he’s trying to win.
He moves like he’s trying to destroy.
He drives his shoulder into Damian’s gut, slamming him against the pillar I’m chained to. The impact rattles my bones. Damian snarls, spitting blood and laughter in the same breath.
“You think she’s yours?” he taunts, voice thick. “She’ll always remember me first.”
The words cut deeper than the blade ever could. My body jerks against the cuffs, metal tearing at my skin. My pulse is screaming. Xander’s head whips toward me for half a second, but it’s just enough for Damian to seize it, ramming his knee into Xander’s stomach and wrenching free.
The gun. I see it before Xander does, the black grip glinting at Damian’s back. He reaches for it, and my blood goes cold.
“Xander!” I scream, every inch of me straining against steel.
Xander turns, eyes wild, and he lunges. His hand closes around Damian’s wrist. The shot never comes.
Instead, the sound is bone crunching under pressure, followed by Damian howling as the pistol clatters across the floor.
It skids toward me. My heart stutters. I kick forward, chains dragging me back, but my toes brush cold metal.
I hook my foot around it, dragging it closer until it’s mine. Every nerve in my body burns.
My skin splits where the handcuffs rub, and yet, I barely feel the pain.
My mind has tunneled into something singular, focused, sharp.
I remember reading once that right before an animal chooses to attack, everything slows down.
Vision narrows.
Breathing deepens.
I understand it now.
My heartbeat becomes the only noise I can hear, steady, heavy, relentless.
The weight of the gun is grounding.
Like holding a spine.
I don’t care that my hands shake.
Shaking means I’m still human.
Fear means I survived.
He looks at me like I’m prey—he always has—but prey doesn’t pick up the weapon.
“Thalia, don’t!” Xander shouts, seeing me. But I already have it. The gun is heavy, more than I expected, and my hands shake around the grip. Damian sees too. He laughs, low and broken, blood running down his chin.
“Look at her. She couldn’t pull that trigger if her life depended on it.”
Maybe I can’t. My pulse hammers violently against my ribs. The gun feels alien, cold, heavy, designed for hands that make choices without consequence.
I’ve never held a gun.
I was never supposed to.
My fingers curl around the grip anyway.
Damian’s eyes meet mine, and I see it for the first time. A flash of uncertainty. Not fear. Not yet. But surprise.
Good.
My hands shake. My body trembles. My thoughts scream.
But for the first time since that night, I’m the one aiming the weapon.
“I told you,” I whisper, each word slicing through the thick air between us. “You don’t get to own me.”
“Don’t you dare underestimate me,” I whisper, voice cracking but steady enough to make him falter.
Xander wrenches Damian down to the floor, pinning him, but I can see the fury burning in his eyes.
He’s seconds away from ending this, right here, right now.
And for one terrifying heartbeat, I want him to. But this isn’t the end.
I clutch the gun tighter and stare at the man who destroyed me. He doesn’t get to win. Not tonight.
Something shifts inside me. A realignment.
For so long, my fear has been the loudest thing in any room.
But now it’s quiet.
I think about every night I stared at a ceiling, trying to convince myself I imagined his hands, his words, the feeling of being small and trapped and ruined.
I think about how many mornings I woke up and checked every lock a second time, then a third and a fourth before sitting against the door because it still never felt enough.
Fear used to be oxygen.
Now I’m starving for something else.
“I’m not the girl you buried,” I whisper, though I don’t know if I’m speaking to Xander or Damian or the broken version of myself that lived in the aftermath.
I shift my grip on the gun. The metal trembles less in my hands.
“I’m not leaving this basement the same.”
And for the first time, I believe it.
-Xander-
Rage burns like fire in my veins, hotter than the blood dripping from my arm. Every time Damian’s face twists into that sick grin, every time he says her name like he owns her, I see red.
There was a night, weeks ago, when Thalia flinched from me in her sleep.
Barely a sound came out of her, just a broken gasp, her body curling in on itself like she was trying to make her bones disappear.
I held her, whispering that she was safe, but she didn’t wake.
She just trembled until the sun came up.
I swore then that if I ever got the chance, I would burn the world to rid her of the things that lived in her nightmares.
Seeing Damian now, smug and alive and breathing in her air?
I want him erased.
Not just for what he did.
But for every moment after.
Every panic attack.
Every night she couldn’t sleep.
Every time she stopped breathing because something reminded her of him.
He didn’t just hurt her.
He lingered.
And I’d rather go to hell than let him have one more second in her head.
But then I see her. Thalia. Wrists torn raw from the cuffs, trembling, and holding a gun. Christ. My girl has a weapon pointed at the man who broke her, and all I can think is how goddamn proud and terrified I am in the same breath.
“Don’t you dare underestimate me,” she whispers, voice shaky but steel underneath. The words hit harder than any punch I’ve ever taken. That’s my Thalia. I don’t think she realizes what she looks like right now.
There’s blood dried down her arms, wrists raw and torn from the cuffs, eyes blown wide with terror, yet she’s the most terrifyingly powerful thing in this room.
Not because she has a gun.
Because she finally believes she deserves to fight.
Damian always thought power was in domination, choking the air out of someone else’s lungs.
But watching Thalia now, shaking, bruised, but refusing to crumble?
That’s power.
I’ve seen hardened men break under less.
I want to pull her into my arms, hide her face in my chest, take her away from all of this, but I also know this is her moment.
Her story.
Her reclaiming.
She’s going to walk out of here free.
And God help anyone who ever tries to cage her again.
Broken open, bleeding, but still standing in front of the storm.
Damian laughs at her, even while I’ve got him pinned.
That laugh makes me want to carve the sound right out of his throat.
I slam his head into the concrete twice, enough to shut him up but not enough to finish it.
Not yet. Because as much as I want to end him here, I see the way Thalia is staring.
She needs this fight to end on her terms.
Tightening my grip, Damian struggles under me.
He’s strong, heavier than he looks, but adrenaline makes me stronger.
My whole body has one aim: protect her. He bucks hard, his elbow jamming into my ribs.
Pain explodes white hot, but I use it. I drive my fist into his face, cartilage crunching under my knuckles.
Blood sprays, his head snapping to the side.
“Still think she’s yours?” I growl, my voice unrecognizable even to me. “Not a fucking chance.”
I want to rip him apart. Bone by bone. Thought by thought.
But then Thalia exhales, one broken sound, and my entire world shifts.
She’s holding the gun—not like a weapon, but like a lifeline.
And suddenly killing Damian myself isn’t enough.
She needs the power back.
She needs the final choice.
I drag Damian by the collar, slamming him into the floor again, not because he’s fighting, but because I can. Because I need him broken.