Chapter 35 #2
When I stand, I keep myself between him and her. Instinct.
“Just say the word,” I tell her. “And I’ll tear him apart.”
He sputters blood and a broken tooth, eyes blazing hatred. “She’ll remember me first.”
I see Thalia flinch. That’s it. That’s the last straw.
There’s something holy about rage when it belongs to someone who has been silenced.
Thalia’s fury isn’t ugly.
It isn’t violent for the sake of destruction.
It’s reclamation.
She isn’t trying to hurt Damian because she wants power over him; she wants power back over herself.
And I swear to every god listening that I will never let anyone take that from her again.
I grab the back of his skull and smash it against the floor until his body goes slack beneath me. His breath still rattles in his chest, but he’s out cold.
The silence that follows is deafening. Just the sound of my ragged breathing, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, and Thalia’s shaky sobs.
I force myself to look away from him, to focus on her.
The gun is slipping from her fingers, her hands trembling so bad she can barely hold it anymore.
I crawl toward her, ignoring the blood dripping from my arm and ribs, and wrap my hand over hers, easing the weapon away.
“It’s over,” I whisper, my forehead pressing to hers.
“He’s down. You’re safe now.” But as I hold her, I know deep down this isn’t over, because I saw the fire in her eyes when she pointed that gun.
Thalia doesn’t just want to survive this.
She wants revenge. And I’ll tie the bastard to a chair myself if that’s what she needs.
-Thalia-
Xander works meticulously at the lock of the handcuffs. My skin is raw, rubbed red and bruised in stark contrast to the metallic links tethering me to this hell.
I don’t flinch when the lock finally gives way, the metallic clatter echoing in the silence like a long-awaited promise of freedom.
His hands hover over mine, gentle and careful, exuding a tenderness that makes my chest ache painfully.
He’s a mess, blood splattered across his clothes, some of it his own but most a grim testament to the violence we’re escaping.
Still, his touch is reverent, as if he believes I might shatter beneath his fingertips.
“You’re free, baby,” he whispers, his breath warm against my skin as he brushes damp hair away from my face, a gesture so tender it almost chokes me with emotion. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Free.
The word ricochets around inside me, unfamiliar, almost foreign. My wrists are free, but my body isn’t convinced; I keep waiting for Damian’s hand to yank me back down.
I touch my wrists, fingertips brushing the bruises. They don’t even look like part of me.
“Don’t let go,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
Xander freezes. His hand tightens around mine, firm and grounding.
“I won’t.”
I look past him, beyond the warmth in his eyes that promises safety and solace.
My gaze lands heavily on Damian’s crumpled body sprawled on the floor, slumped but still breathing, a grotesque remnant of the nightmare he has woven into my life.
Fury rises like lava within me, white-hot and unrelenting, the rage I’ve been burying since that horrific night resurfacing with a vengeance.
“I can’t,” I breathe out, my voice hoarse but steady as I shake my head, my focus unwavering from Damian’s form. “I’m not leaving until it’s finished.”
If I walk away now, Damian lives in my head forever.
The memory becomes permanent.
He becomes permanent.
My therapist once said trauma freezes the body in time, like part of you gets stuck there, replaying the moment forever, searching for the version where you get away.
I never got away.
Until now.
“I need to end the loop,” I whisper, barely aware I’m speaking.
End the replay.
End the power.
End him.
Xander freezes, his expression twisting into one of alarm as panic threads through his voice. “What do you mean?”
My throat burns as I swallow down the fire that threatens to erupt.
“I’m not leaving,” I repeat, my voice stronger now, the defiance wrapping around me like armor.
“Not when he’s still breathing.” I turn to him, the spark of fire in my chest growing hotter, searing through the remnants of fear that linger there.
“It doesn’t end until I say it does,” I retort, my voice fierce yet trembling with raw emotion.
“He took everything from me, Xander. My body. My safety. My sanity. Every single day has been a battle since I drowned in what he did to me. If you walk me out of here right now, he wins again.”
His jaw clenches, muscles straining against the weight of his anger, and I see the twitch of his fists as he wrestles with himself.
I know he wants to fight me on this, to scoop me up and carry me away from this nightmare, but he sees me, truly sees me.
He looks at me like I’m the thing at risk of shattering, not the man bleeding at my feet.
Xander doesn’t fear death or pain or hell.
He fears losing me.
“I don’t want you to become someone you’ll regret,” he whispers.
“I already am,” I say quietly.
And maybe that’s what breaks him.
The strength, the determination, the unwavering resolve in my eyes.
After an agonizing moment of silence stretching between us, where our breaths mingle in the thick tension, he finally nods, slow and heavy, the weight of the moment almost palpable.
“All right,” he concedes, his voice low and dangerous, like the rumble of distant thunder. “But you don’t touch him unless I’m right there. You get one shot, Thalia. One. And then I’m ending this.”
A surge of overwhelming relief floods through me, though it’s tangled with adrenaline, sending tremors through my hands.
Together, we move with purpose, dragging Damian’s limp body across the cold floor.
The scrape of his body against concrete is deafening.
I feel every vibration through the soles of my feet.
Xander is breathing hard, every movement laced with barely restrained rage.
The chain’s metal links glint under the bulb as we tighten them around Damian’s wrists. My fingertips graze his skin, clammy and lifeless.
I expected to feel fear.
Instead, I feel power.