CASSIAN
The living room of the suite felt smaller than it had an hour ago, crowded by the presence of ghosts and the sharp, medicinal tang of antiseptic. I sat on the edge of the velvet sofa, my jaw set as the medical practitioner worked in silence. Across the room, I watched Cyan.
He was being everything I wanted to be in that moment. Cyan had his good arm wrapped around Noah's trembling shoulders, guiding him with a whispered tenderness toward the bedroom. Noah moved like a sleepwalker, his gaze vacant and haunting, his spirit still trapped in that glass tomb of a penthouse.
I wanted to stand up. I wanted to shove the practitioner aside, go to him, and pull him against my chest until the shivering stopped. I wanted to tell him that as long as I was breathing, no one... not Alex, not my father, not God himself... would ever lay a hand on him again. But I was stuck.
I was anchored by the needle currently threading through my skin and the crushing weight of my own guilt.
