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Chapter 35

Idril

Iwalked out.

Without asking if I could leave. Without giving them an explanation or a reason. I just… walked out. I’m not sure that I even looked any of them in the eyes.

Certainly not Dax. Not after he took all the good memories I had of my mother, ripped them to pieces, and set them on fire.

I’m exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally. It’s settled into my bones and marrow and refuses to leave, making every movement feel like I’m walking through water. My stomach cramps with hunger, and the headache I’ve been staving off all day is now pulsing behind my eyes in steady waves of pain.

I press my hand over my stomach, where Cage shoved me into the crates yesterday. It still aches, but not nearly as bad as I thought it should. Not nearly as bad as my heart, after what Dax spat at me in the library.

I feel like I’ve been ripped apart, forced to show my insides, and then sewn haphazardly back together again. I feel exposed in a way I never have before.

When Riven defended me, and Dax and Vae actually seemed to listen to him?

I had hope. I gambled everything on that hope.

And I lost.

I can’t even tell myself it’ll never happen again, or that I’ve learned my lesson after today, because that wouldn’t be true. Optimism is a part of me. One, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully kill. I hate it because it always costs me something, but I think it’s also what reminds me that I’m not simply surviving.

As long as I continue to hope, there’s still a chance things might get better.

I spent the years after my mother died following my father’s orders like the good little Omega he wanted me to be. I convinced myself that if I were good enough, if I were quiet and obedient and useful, then maybe he’d love me.

If he loved me, maybe he wouldn’t kill me the way he killed my mother.

Meeting Caelan had shone a light on the darkness I’d been living in. I’m finally able to admit how bad things were once, now that I know how wonderful they can truly be.

With my father, it had been easier to pretend like I wasn’t dying a slow death up until those final days. Like my instincts weren’t constantly screaming at me that something was wrong, wrong, wrong.

It was easier to tell myself a bunch of pretty stories until I forgot that they were lies.

Now, here, the pain is acute. Constant. Always there, no matter what I do. And underneath it all is that flame in my chest that just keeps on burning, refusing to go out no matter how often it pushes me to stand up for myself and demand better. It’s burned hotter over the last few days, and there are moments I swear I can feel it pulsing in time to my heartbeat.

It’s there—demanding and insistent and alive. I don’t know how much longer I can keep it contained. I don’t know how much longer I can keep beating back the desire to do something stupid that I know will only end in more pain.

I pull my knees up to my chest, trying to curl into a tighter ball. I changed my leggings as soon as I got up here, and the blanket is now covering the marks on the floor, but that had been the final straw when I finally made it to the relative safety of this room.

I don’t know what’s happening to me. I have no idea what I am, or what’s wrong with me, or how to stop it.

Whatever it is, it’s not normal.

I’m not normal.

‘You’re special.’

Father’s words echo through my memories, but with a completely different undercurrent than they’ve ever had.

Is there a chance he knows why these things are happening?

The memories from the night of the attack are fragmented and blurry at best, but sometimes I wake in the middle of the night with the echo of windows shattering and the floor cracking apart, and screams.

My screams.

A knock sounds on the door. It’s hesitant but loud enough to startle me. I consider pretending I’m asleep and ignoring it, but I know I can’t hide. Whoever’s out there can surely hear me sniffing and shifting around. Can probably tell by the cadence of my heartbeat that I’m awake.