21. Wren
WREN
“I ducked into the bathroom to shower while you slept, and that must have been when you woke up, because when I came out, you were gone.”
The silence after Ronan finishes feels like a held breath. Heavy. Fragile. My pulse thrums in my ears, too loud in the quiet. No one moves. No one speaks.
Because what the hell do you say after that?
I sit frozen, fingers clenched in the blanket on my lap. I’m not cold, but I can’t seem to let go. My knuckles are white, and I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath until I feel Silas’s hand brush against mine, subtle yet grounding. My lungs stutter before pulling in an uneven breath.
“I’d gone to the party with a group of girls from my stats class after the game.
” My voice is soft, hoarse, as I succumb to the scant few memories I have of that night.
“It was the first one of the year. The first time I was out from under my family’s thumb, removed from the Winslow name, and able to just…
be myself.” My voice cracks, my throat closing over.
I stop, sucking in a deep breath before forcing it out, slow and steady.
My chest aches with the memory of how free I felt. Oh, how na?ve that freedom was.
“I’ve never been a big drinker. Not in public, at least. Never know who is lurking nearby with a phone ready to record your most embarrassing moments and upload them for the world to laugh at.
” I scoff. That awareness was drilled into me by my parents.
If only public humiliation had been the worst thing that came out of that party.
“I only had a couple of drinks—at least, that’s all I remember having.
” I shrug, staring down at my lap and unable to meet a single one of their gazes.
“For the first time at a party, I was having fun. Laughing. Dancing. Just being myself. Not a Winslow prop. Not a Serpents representative.” I trail off, at a loss for words, emotions threatening to drown me as they swell up to block my throat.
Ronan’s hand moves to rest on my knee, the sudden contact shocking me out of the memories of that night. “You were being a typical college student. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I nod, and yet I’ve always carried the belief that what happened was somehow my fault.
If I’d worn jeans instead of a dress. If I’d stuck to water.
If I had stood against the wall instead of allowing myself to get pulled into the group of dancing bodies, then maybe…
Maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here now, feeling like a stranger in my own skin.
I heave another breath before forcing myself to continue.
“Then it gets blurry. Faces bleed into one another, and I remember the sensation of the ground tilting beneath me. The sound of the party got too loud, making me nauseous.” My eyes scrunch, palms growing sweaty as we get to the crux of that night, as the memories start to become more disjointed.
“I don’t know if I left the party of my own accord or if someone was with me.
” My stomach turns. “After that...it’s just flashes.
I remember gravel under my knees. My palms burning.
I remember the panic, the cloying fear.” I shake my head. “And after that…nothing.”
Silas’s grip tightens slightly.
I glance down at our hands. Then, finally, lift my gaze to Ronan.
“When you spoke at The Stanley, and I heard your voice...it cracked something open in me. Like this pressure behind my ribs that finally gave. That was the first real piece I got back. You, speaking. Saying something or maybe asking something. Then Lucian’s arms around me, and Silas’s blue eyes. ”
“That’s why you fled that night,” Lucian speaks up. “Because you recognized his voice and you thought we were involved.”
I hesitate before nodding.
Silas squeezes my hand hard enough that I look his way. His gaze is soft, understanding, as though he’s trying to convey without words that he understands why I would jump to that conclusion.
Ronan leans forward. “Do you remember who gave you the drink? Anything about them?”
I shake my head slowly. “I’ve gone over it a hundred times.
I poured the drink myself, but I can’t remember if I set it down at any point.
I know I wouldn’t have left it unattended, but maybe I set it on a surface behind me.
I could have turned my back for a second.
” I shrug helplessly, not having any answers.
I’ve scoured through every minute detail that I can remember from that night and…
nothing. “No one stood out. I don’t recall anyone paying me extra attention.
No one offered to get me a drink. I only danced with the girls. ” I shake my head.
Lucian exhales sharply. “It could’ve been anyone.”
Pulling his notebook from his pocket with his hand that isn’t wrapped around mine, Silas quickly writes.
It could have been a spiked bottle.
“Definitely possible,” Ronan agrees.
“What do you mean? I wasn’t specifically targeted?” I ask, gaze bouncing between them.
“Someone could have spiked a bottle of juice or something,” Lucian explains, eyes flashing and jaw ticking.
“The fruity shit that girls typically mix in with their spirits. Easier to do without getting caught and opens up a range of potential targets. Then whoever did it can have their pick of the crop.”
My nose scrunches, disgust roiling in my gut.
I sit with that for a moment. It feels worse, somehow. Not being hunted but being plucked out of a crowd like the unlucky loser in some cruel lottery. Like my life was altered forever because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“That’s even more fucked up,” I choke out. “Drugging for sport. It means it could have been anybody—multiple anyones.”
The words leave my lips like poison. I can taste the bile.
I force myself to breathe through it, feeling sicker and sicker by the second.
My lungs tighten, drawing less and less air.
My chest seizes. The edges of the room blur, tilt, then vanish entirely as the panic crests like a wave and crashes into me.
Sudden and violent, it drowns me before I can scream.
I can’t—
I can’t—
My hands shake so badly that I drop the glass of water Lucian brought me. It shatters on the floor. I flinch at the sound, but I don’t move.
“Hey, just breathe,” one of them says. There’s a hand rubbing my back, and someone else pushes my head between my knees. Silas’s hand remains steadily in mine, my nails digging into his flesh as I succumb to the panic. The fear.
I gasp—a horrible, wet sound, like something feral breaking free. Like every sob I never allowed myself, now demands to be heard. My body convulses as the tears finally come, not quiet anymore, but ragged and wild and real. It feels like something inside me has finally split open.
I feel it all. The humiliation. The confusion. The searing, violating shame. The questions I never asked out loud because I already hated the answers. Did I deserve it? Was it my fault? Did I let this happen to me?
I scrape at my chest like I can dig out all the awful feelings, like I can tear them free. But they’re rooted too deep, tangled like thorns around my ribs.
Arms close around me. Not restraining. Just...holding. They anchor me in the present.
Ronan’s across from me one second, then in front of me the next. One hand at my back, the other bracing my thigh like he’s grounding me to the earth. “Hey,” he says softly, eyes shining like wet onyx. “Look at me, Wren. I’ve got you.”
Lucian folds himself around my side. His jaw is tight, his throat working around emotion he won’t let free. “You’re safe now, Little Moth. Nobody’s going to hurt you again.” His voice is like gravel, his words a violent promise.
Silas moves closer, pressing his forehead against mine, our clasped hands resting against my chest, like he’s trying to calm the frantic beating of my heart with his own silent presence.
And I break. Like glass under pressure, sharp and irreparable.
I break for the girl I was. For the parts of me I lost that night. For the silence that followed. I break beneath the weight of carrying it all alone.
And they let me.
They let me fall apart. They don’t hush me or flinch or recoil.
They hold me through it. They feel it with me.
Lucian’s thumb brushes the tears from my cheek, rough fingers tender in a way that guts me, especially from someone who holds the world at arm’s length.
Ronan keeps whispering, “You’re safe. We’ve got you.
Just breathe, baby, breathe.” And Silas never once lets go of my hand, his presence solid and steady at my side.
They don’t spew false platitudes like it’s going to be okay, but I believe them when they tell me I’m safe. Because for the first time in years…I am.