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Bethany sat on the floor, her back against the wall. One look at her face—blank, distant—and I knew. She was gone.

“B?” I gripped the wall and eased down. “Talk to me, what’s going on?”

She shook her head.

“It’s me.” I murmured. “Let me in.”

“I’ll…I’ll just leave you two be.” Vivienne backed away, already retreating.

The house swallowed her.

I leaned back against the wall beside Bethany, listening to the chaos spilling through the walls.

Doors slamming. Voices rising. Something breaking.

Too much.

All of it.

“I’m too broken.”

I turned my head slowly toward her.

“They don’t know what I am.”

Oh God.

The words hot too close. Too familiar.

I forced myself to stay where I was. To not fall into it. Not here. Not now.

I couldn’t afford that.

“They might not,” I said quietly. “But we do, right? We know what we are. Where we’ve been. What we’ve survived.”

The same brokenness.

The same beast.

“Who is going to want this?” She asked. “Be honest here. Who is going to want someone who sleeps in their closet and walks like the ground is always shaking under her feet? Who is going to want me when I have nothing left to give?”

The files from Vivienne’s study rose in my mind.

Men pinned to paper. Sharp suits. Hard eyes. Power in the way they stood.

Men who could have anyone.

And yet—they were here.

For us.

Why?

Our bodies?

Our obedience?

Our silence?