Silence fell all at once: heavy, suffocating, like the air itself had stopped breathing.
The nail gun still glimmered in the killer's hand, a few inches from Giulia's trembling face.
Clara felt her pulse hammering in her skull, every heartbeat a countdown.
Adrian lay motionless on the floor, blood pooling beneath his side.
If she didn't act now, they would both die.
"Take me," she said, her voice stretched tight as wire.
"Let her go."
The killer stared at her, something flickering behind the darkness in his eyes.
He tilted his head slightly.
"And why would I?"
"Because I can heal you."
He laughed, a broken, hollow sound that echoed like a child's sob twisted into mockery.
"Heal me? No one can fix what I am."
"Yes," Clara whispered, taking a single step closer. "I can."
Their eyes met, a connection, a risk, a door half open.
He lowered the nail gun, half curious, half deranged, then grabbed her by the throat, his grip so tight she could feel the burn of his fingers on her skin.
"Show me, then."
Her breath caught, but she didn't fight.
She closed her eyes. And opened her mind.
It was like falling into an ocean made of glass and screams.
A child's room appeared around her, small, damp walls, a broken window, a bed with no sheets.
A boy sat on the floor, no more than six or seven, knees to his chest, his small hands scraped and bleeding.
His eyes were far too large for his face.
"Don't look at me like that!"
A man's voice thundered. Then came the belt. The sound of it slicing through the air, the crack, the gasp.
Clara flinched. The pain wasn't just his. It was hers.
Each strike left a mark inside her head.
Each scream etched another line in the boy's memory, until nothing human was left.
Another flash.
The mother now, shaking him, shouting, the plate shattering against the wall, the silence that followed.
The silence was worse than the blows.
Then adolescence.
Dark streets. A shadow offering shelter that was really a cage.
"You only matter if you obey."
And he obeyed, for love, for fear, for the illusion of safety.
Clara's body shook. The pain that flooded her chest wasn't physical, it was ancient, raw, bottomless.
It was the kind of pain that makes monsters.
"You ever wonder how someone like me is born?"
The voice wasn't the child's anymore. It was the man's, the killer's.
"It happens when love becomes a weapon. When the hands that save you are the ones that break you."
Clara trembled. She saw faces flicker in the dark, the father, the mother, and then her own.
The killer was looking straight into her soul, and for a heartbeat, she couldn't tell where he ended and she began.
She reached for him, desperate to pull him out of that abyss. To make him see light.
She gathered everything she had, compassion, warmth, life and sent it like a wave through the thread that bound them.
For an instant, it worked. The boy dropped to his knees, his hands covering his face, tears glittering like sparks.
The walls around him cracked, just slightly, enough to glimpse a sliver of humanity.
But then, something shifted.
The pain turned to rage. The rage turned into a storm. And the connection inverted.
Now he was inside her.
He saw her memories: Adrian, the kiss, the way she looked at him. He saw her love.
And he laughed.
"That's your weakness."
Clara tried to pull away, but she couldn't.
Without Adrian near, her power was slipping.
Every second felt like drowning.
She saw her own reflection morph into his, his face replacing hers in a whirl of darkness.
"You want to save me?" he hissed. "No one ever saved me. No one ever wanted me."
"I do!" she screamed, aloud and in her mind, the words cutting through blood and terror.
"I want you to be free!"
Light burst from her hands: brilliant, searing, unstoppable. It shot through the link between them.
The killer's body convulsed. His eyes rolled back.His scream filled the house, not of anger, but pure, blind terror.
Then stillness.
Clara fell to her knees, her chest heaving.
She had cracked his mind but not enough.
The darkness inside him was too deep, too ancient.
"Adrian…"
She turned. He wasn't moving. Blood had soaked the floor around him.
"No… please, no…"
She crawled toward him, but a hand yanked her backward by the hair. A sharp blow to the back of her skull. The world tipped sideways.
The last thing she saw was the killer's hollow stare and the last thing she heard was his voice: "Now it's your turn to learn what it feels like not to be saved."
Then everything went black.
Giulia froze for a long, shattering moment.
The killer was dragging Clara away by the arms, her body limp, her hair trailing like a ghost's. The sound of footsteps faded into the distance. Then Giulia ran: stumbling, gasping, heart thundering. She reached the room where Luca knelt beside Adrian, pressing his hand against the wound.
Giulia burst through the doorway, tears streaking her cheeks.
"She saved me," she sobbed, "and he took her."
Luca's head snapped up, his face white with horror. Adrian lay still, barely breathing.
Giulia fell to her knees, her hands trembling.
The only sound left in the house was the fragile breath of the living, and the echo of a monster's footsteps, vanishing into the night with Clara in his arms.