"Ethan let out a long sigh, slightly lifting his chin as he absorbed her confession. His expression showed neither surprise nor blind fury—after all, he already knew beforehand and had been watching the two of them closely.
He fixed his eyes on Hope's with a cold and calculating serenity, and replied:
— What's done is done, Hope. You couldn't have known. But... if you really want to make it up to me in some way for everything that was taken from me, you're going to do exactly as I say.
Hope stared at him cautiously, frowning as apprehension mixed with remorse in her chest.
— What do you want? — she asked, tense.
Ethan broke into a short, calculating smile, a glimpse of that ruthless side he had guarded for years in the dark.
— To start with, you're not going to break up with Landon. Not yet.
— !! What?! Why?! — Hope blurted out, shocked, pulling back slightly from him, her blue eyes wide with disbelief. — What sense does that make, Ethan?!
— Nah... Breaking up now would give him an easy way out — Ethan retorted, his voice low, firm, and cutting. — I want to destroy that idiot from the inside out. I want him to taste what it's like to lose everything he thinks he controls, very slowly.
The shock was so violent that Hope immediately stood up from his body, sitting on the grass beside him, horrified by the direction of the conversation.
— I can't do that, Ethan! That's way too cruel, it's dirty play! Landon didn't do anything to you in this life, he just... he just was there when I had nobody else! — she argued, shaking her head in denial, her empathy for her ex-boyfriend conflicting with the loyalty she felt toward Ethan.
The fault for all of this is mine.
Ethan didn't panic. With a fluid movement, he placed his hands on the grass, rose calmly, and sat for a moment, gazing at the starry sky before shifting his gaze back to her. The intensity of the green in his eyes cut through the air.
— You owe me this, Hope — he said, measuredly, in a tone that admitted no argument.
— But I can just break up with him! — she insisted, crossing her arms and trying to find a moral escape route. — You don't need to get your hands dirty or make me fake something like this, I'll deal with Landon right now and...
— It's not just about dealing with things with him, Hope — Ethan interrupted, standing all the way up and coming within inches of her, closing all the space between them until she could feel the heat of his body. — It's about justice. Nobody steals what's mine, nobody takes my place and thinks they're going to get away scot-free as if nothing happened. He's going to pay for his audacity. And you're going to be by my side while it happens.
The silence that followed hung heavy like lead between the two, broken only by the whisper of the night wind rustling the treetops around the school.
Hope stared at him with tear-filled eyes, her expression taken over by a mixture of disbelief and pain as she looked at the man before her—so different from that gentle, warm boy she remembered from her memories.
— Where did the sweet Ethan go... the Ethan from before? — she asked, her voice trembling, almost a whisper pleading for a crumb of that past she had just recovered.
Ethan didn't look away for a second. The rigidity in his posture was absolute, shielded by the memories of the tortures and the emptiness he had faced. He took a step closer, his expression cold and cutting:
— That Ethan died deep down in that hell a long time ago — he replied, without the slightest trace of hesitation or remorse in his voice. — What's left is this right here.
He paused briefly, observing the internal storm waging in the tribrid's mind, before slightly tilting his head and demanding her answer:
— Well? What's it going to be?
Hope froze. She turned her face away, lowering her head to stare at the dark grass, biting hard on the side of her mouth to the point of almost tearing the skin. Inside, her stomach churned in a suffocating knot.
A part of her screamed that this was wrong, that using Landon as a pawn in a cold, calculating revenge was far too cruel. The human boy was not to blame for having been just a manipulated piece on Malivore's invisible board; he didn't deserve to be destroyed from the inside out for a crime he didn't even know he had committed.
But at the same time, the other half of her soul—the one that had just reconnected to her true history—weighed much heavier. She remembered the sacrifice. She remembered the wolf necklace, the confession of love under the moon, and the twenty years of absolute darkness that Ethan endured alone in her place. She owed her very life to him. Every breath she took in that moment existed only because Ethan had pulled the Hollow out of her and paid the ultimate price.
She couldn't deny him anything he wanted. She owed it to him with every drop of her blood. She needed to stay by his side... but at what cost to her own conscience?
With her fists clenched at her sides, fighting the unbearable weight of that decision, Hope finally raised her damp eyes to face him, her voice coming out almost inaudible, but laden with a bitter surrender:
— I... I'll do whatever you want.
A slow, cold, and openly predatory smile curved Ethan's lips. In his mind, the triumphant echo of his own plan resonated with absolute clarity: "I won."
— Very good, little wolf... — he murmured, his voice low, velvety, and charged with a dominance that sent a shiver down Hope's spine.
With a swift and firm movement, Ethan grabbed her chin, his fingers pressing into her skin with just enough force to force her to lift her face and look directly into his eyes. Without giving her room to say anything else, he captured her lips in a possessive, deep, and direct kiss—a seal marking the tribrid's total surrender and the beginning of his planned ruin for Landon.
He pulled back slowly, breaking the touch leisurely, just appreciating for half a second Hope's confused, humiliated, and completely yielded expression.
Without saying another word, Ethan turned around, adjusted the collar of his shirt, and walked with calm strides back to the school's main building, disappearing into the darkness of the night and leaving Hope alone on the cold grass in the back, torn between the overwhelming love for her savior and the weight of the cruelty she had been forced to accept."