General POV,
Aria storms through the hallway, each step pounding against the polished floor like a drum echoing her racing thoughts.
She refuses to think about what is happening, refuses to let her mind dwell on the chaos of her life, the suffocating reality pressing down on her.
They want her to stay here, to serve them until her strength is drained, her soul fraying at the edges. Fine. She will do it. If that is what they want, she will comply.
After all, what worth has life ever had anyway? Every heartbeat feels like a reminder of a pointless existence, every breath a burden she doesn't wish to carry.
But there is one thing she will not allow herself to ignore, one stubborn truth she clings to as the walls of the pack house seem to close around her.
Why can't she leave? People resign, step away, refuse their duties whenever they choose, so why not her?
Why must she be trapped here, reduced to obedience when her will, her very life, should belong only to herself?
Her thoughts spiral faster, a storm raging inside her chest, until the air around her feels thick, almost impossible to move through.
And then.. without warning a strong hand seizes her arm and yanks her into one of the darkened rooms that line the hall.
She barely has time to register the sudden shift, the sharp turn of her world before she is pressed against the cold wall.
Hillary hovers over her, his presence overwhelming, his hot, uneven breath brushing against her ear, against her neck, every inch of him a force she cannot resist.
"I really miss you," he murmurs, his voice low, intimate, carrying a weight that presses on her chest. "It really kills me when I can't even have a second to be close with you! It feels like you are so far away when you are just somewhere I can see you all the time." His words are desperate but controlled, the confession hanging heavy in the room.
Aria doesn't fight. She doesn't yell at him. She simply allows him this moment, the chance to unburden himself, before she swallows hard, forcing her gaze upward, locking eyes with him with unyielding resolve.
Her expression is calm, but inside her chest, her heart hammers like a drumline gone wild.
"Let's break up," she says, her voice steady and firm despite the chaos inside her. "It's not a suggestion, actually. I… I just don't know another way to say it."
Hillary stumbles at her words, disbelief flashing across his features. "Aria, come on. We can still find other ways to be with each other. We've done this our whole lives. You can't do this to me after what we shared last night! I couldn't tell you because I knew you would want to leave me! I marked you because I thought I would stop feeling the pull toward Victoria! I just wanted you to belong to me and me to you. That's why I did it." His voice cracks on the last words, the desperation seeping into every syllable, but instead of softening Aria, it fuels the fire already building inside her.
"That was so selfish," she snaps, her hands pressing against the wall to keep herself steady.
, "because you knew very well if things didn't go our way, I would remain here wanting you, because of this mark! While you would just mark someone else and move on! I don't want to talk about this! So will you just let go?!"
Her voice begins to waver, raw emotion clawing to escape as the pain she's been trying to bury rises with a violent force.
"I'm not going to mark her, I promise. You already possess my mark and I…" Hillary begins, his hand reaching toward her cheek, but she cuts him off with a sharp movement, turning her face just enough to block him.
"For heaven's sake, Hillary, will you just stop?! Please.." she cries, her voice rising and cracking, her hands trembling against the wall. "Why are you doing this to me?! You know very well there's no way we're ever going to be together, no matter how much we try! So why don't you just let us move on from this?!.. just let it go…"
Hillary's chest tightens visibly. "Aria, there's no way you're going to convince me out of the idea that we don't want to be with each other, that we don't love each other! So instead of this fight… why can't we just give each other what we desire?! Why fight it?! We've been in a secret relationship for so long, and we've managed through it. So why not?! I'm only with Victoria out of duty. I want to be with you because I want you! Because I love you."
"Oh?!" Aria exclaims, pulling sharply away from him, the instinct to flee driving her forward. "So all along you've been planning to keep me a secret?! This doesn't sound like love at all. It sounds like I've just been used! If I had known earlier that in your head you were always planning to keep me a secret, then I shouldn't have started this relationship with you in the first place!" She lunges toward the door, desperation propelling her, but his strength is more than hers, and he pins her with an immovable force that crushes any hope of escape.
"Tell me one thing, Aria," Hillary says, his voice low, rough, but trembling, "if it were you in my shoes right now, what would you have done?! The fact that you don't see my pain too, but only yours, and how I have failed, it sounds like you never loved me at all. Because if you did, at least you would feel my pain, you would feel my struggle." The ache in his voice, the raw, bleeding desperation, makes her chest tighten in response.
Her throat feels raw, her lungs heavy, her stomach twisting as if every beat of his heart reverberates painfully in her own.
She blinks back tears, swallowing hard against the lump rising in her throat. "You are right," she whispers finally, her voice broken. "Maybe I never did love you. Maybe we never loved each other after all. Maybe it was just…"
The words die in her mouth, unformed, unnameable, because she knows it is nothing else but something real, something undeniable, something that cannot be labeled without shattering completely under the weight of truth.