I do not remember walking back to the guest room. My legs move, but my mind is somewhere else entirely, caught in the echo of Damian’s voice from moments ago. The words keep replaying in my head, sharper than the sound of his mother accusing him, sharper than the revelation about the archive.
She is not the chaos. She is the one who survived it.
He said that about me. He defended me with a conviction that felt carved from bone, not surface-level loyalty. It shook me down to the center of my chest.
Now the shaking threatens to turn into something else. Something harder. Something that feels like breaking.
I sit on the bed for a moment, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes. I try to calm my breath. It does not work. The air feels thick, almost heavy enough to swallow.
I stand again
