She had looked at my scars and not flinched.
She had seen the silence around me and stepped into it like she was not afraid of my darkness.
She had put her teeth in my skin and dragged me back from death with a bond I had not deserved.
And now?
Now she was somewhere in this place, panicking and hurting, and I was hanging from a wall like meat.
My jaw locked so hard pain shot through my teeth.
No.
This was not how death worked.
Death did not wait to be useful.
Death did not hang helpless while the living suffered.
Death came without a care. Without asking permission.
I sucked in a breath and reached for the thing I had spent half my life keeping chained.
My unhinged other half.
My hunger.
My blood-soaked instinct.
The part of me that did not hesitate. Did not regret. Did not
