Chapter 16
Zwierek grabbed my arm before I even fully understood what I had done. “Move.”
The hallway blurred past us, the door still hanging open behind me, dark red blood staining the floor in a way I refused to look at properly because if I did, if I stopped for even a second to actually see it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to take another step.
We were outside before my body caught up to my mind.
Cold air hit my face like a thin blade drawn across skin.
The metallic taste in my mouth refusing to leave, like it had settled somewhere deep.
Branches tore at my sleeves as we pushed into the treeline, the ground uneven beneath my feet, mud catching at my shoes, slipping, catching again, breath already burning in my chest and throat, but I couldn’t slow down.
Because Zwierek didn’t slow down, and I wasn’t about to be the one who fell behind.
It was dark between the trees. The kind of dark that swallows dimension and distance, where everything looks the same, no matter how far you go. We kept going anyway. I don’t know for how long. Minutes, maybe longer. Time didn’t feel like something that applied anymore.
Eventually, the pace broke, like something in both of us hit a limit at the same time.
We stumbled into stillness, hands on our knees, both of us bent forward, lungs dragging in air that didn’t feel like enough, no matter how much of it I took.
My pulse still hammering so hard I could feel it in my throat, in my temples, everywhere at once. That’s when it hit.
The sounds he had made, bones crushing, blood splashing.
The cold heft of the metal in my hand. The way his body had…
given up. I straightened too quickly, dizziness hitting immediately, my vision narrowing for a second before snapping back, clearer.
Way too fucking clear, like everything had been turned up too high.
“Fuck…” It came out before I could stop it. Rough and too loud.
“Fuck… what the fuck…”
My hands were shaking. I didn’t remember deciding to look at them, but I was staring at them like they belonged to someone else.
“I…” My voice broke, breath catching wrong in my chest.
“What the fuck did I… What did I do…”
Zwierek didn’t answer, and somehow that made it worse.
“Say something!” I snapped, looking at him now, something feral and desperate pushing up under my ribs.
“What the fuck do we do? What do we, what the fuck was that…”
He was watching me. And something about that, about how still he was while everything in me felt like it was coming apart, something in me snapped sideways.
“This is your fault.”
The words came fast, too fast, but once they were out, they didn’t stop.
“This is… this is because of you,” I continued, voice rising, hands coming up, gesturing without direction.
“You… you put this in my head! All of it, all of that shit you kept saying, all those fucking books!” He didn’t say anything, not immediately.
“You’re fucking insane,” I yelled, stepping closer without thinking, adrenaline still burning through me in a way that didn’t have anywhere to go.
“You’ve been pushing this, you wanted this!”
That’s when he moved.
I barely registered it before I was on the ground. The collision knocked the air out of me, leaves and damp earth pressing into my back. Something thorned digging into my shoulder as his weight came down over me, pinning me there before I could even process how we got there.
“Say that again.”
What disturbed me was how quiet his voice remained. It was tight, like something being held just under the surface. I struggled. Reflex, pure panic, anger. All of it tangled together into something messy and useless as I tried to shove him off, but he didn’t move. Didn’t even shift.
“You think this is me?” he asked, leaning closer. His grip tightening just enough to make the point without needing to force it.
“You think I did that?”
I snapped back immediately.
“Yes!” breath uneven, chest heaving under him.
“You! You fucking –” He cut my sentence off.
“You did it.”
That stopped me. His eyes didn’t leave mine.
“You did it,” he repeated.
“No one held your hand. No one forced you.”
“That’s not –”
“You grabbed it.”
My jaw clenched.
“You swung.”
My hands curled into fists against the ground.
“And you didn’t stop.”
“Don’t you dare try to hand that to me.”
Something in his tone shifted then into something serrated.
“You’ve spent your entire fucking life taking it,” he continued, voice cutting through the space between us, every word barbed, placed exactly where it would land the hardest.
“Standing there, letting him break you down piece by piece like it was just something you had to endure.” My chest tightened.
“You didn’t do anything,” He said.
“Not once.” I looked away. I don’t know why.
“Look at me.”
His hand came up, firm enough to force it, fingers gripping my jaw just enough to turn my face back to him.
“Look. At. Me.”
I did.
“You didn’t give him anything he didn’t give you first,” he said, each word slower now, more controlled, like he was making sure I couldn’t twist it into something else.
“You think that was too much?” I blinked a tear away from my eye and let it slide down my cheek.
“He deserved much worse.”
Something in my stomach dropped.
“Death?” he continued, almost amused now, but there was nothing light about it. “That’s fucking mercy.”
My breath hitched.
“If you wanted revenge,” he said, leaning closer, his voice dropped just enough that I had to focus to catch every word,
“You would’ve taken your time. You would’ve made him feel it. You would’ve –” “Stop.”
It came out weaker than I meant it to. But it still broke something, because he did stop.
For a second, everything went still again.
Then something inside me gave. I turned my head away, breath catching wrong, something burning behind my eyes that I didn’t recognize immediately because I hadn't felt it like that in a long time.
“I didn’t –” My voice cracked, and I hated it.
“I didn’t –” Words didn’t come. Because there wasn’t anything that fit. Not for what I had done. Not for what I was starting to understand about it. Because the worst part was that he wasn’t wrong.
You see, little Ghost, that’s the thing.
The part people expect to break you isn’t always the part that does. Sometimes it’s the moment you realize you could have stopped but chose not to.
My body went slack under him; I didn’t have anything left to push against. The fight drained out of me all at once, leaving something heavier in its place.
Something that sat deep in my chest and didn’t move when I tried to breathe through it.
Zwierek let go, just like that. The pressure disappeared, his weight lifting off me as he stood, stepping back just enough to give me space without actually…
leaving. I stayed where I was for a second, maybe longer.
Then I pushed myself up, slow and unsteady.
The forest felt different now, like it had shifted while I wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t say anything at first, but then,
“Hey.” Not biting this time. I looked at him. Something in his expression had changed. He reached out and steadied me when I didn’t quite find my balance on my own.
“It’s done,” he said.
“You hear me?”
I swallowed.
“You’re still here,” he continued, his grip firm on my shoulder, grounding in a way I didn’t expect.
“Nothing changes that.” Everything changes that, I thought, but I didn’t say it. “It’s going to be fine,” he added, and it should’ve sounded empty, but it didn’t. “We just need to move.”
We… I nodded. He didn’t push for more. Just stepped back, giving me space again, but not too much. Never too much. I glanced past him, back to the way we came.
“Come on,” he said.
I followed, and as we moved deeper into the trees, something settled into place inside me.
Something that didn’t feel like it was going anywhere.
That’s when I understood it. There’s a difference between doing something once, and realizing you’re capable of doing it again.
And I knew, even then, which side I was on.