Aeris
The shaking had stopped.
Not completely, but enough for me to breathe again without feeling like I was choking on glass. My hands were still curled into fists under the blanket, my fingernails dug crescents into my palms, and every muscle in my body ached like I'd sprinted for hours.
I felt... hollow.
Like my soul had cracked open and all that spilled out was noise and dust.
Slowly, I looked up.
They were still here.
Ronan. Silas. Kade.
Three ghosts from the nightmare that was my everyday life—now suddenly real, three-dimensional, and sitting quietly in a room that didn't feel like any place I belonged.
"What the hell is this?" My voice came out like sandpaper, low and torn.
Ronan stood halfway up from his chair, but paused when I flinched. His hands lifted—palms open, surrender. Like I was a wild animal he was afraid to scare off.
"You're safe," he said quietly. "You're in our house."
House.
I blinked around the room. High ceilings. Dark wood. Warm light from a fireplace I hadn't noticed earlier. Windows too tall for any normal home. Curtains drawn. A place meant to feel safe, but it didn't. Not to me.
My heart kicked up again. "Why?"
"Why are you here?" My voice sharpened, scraped raw by confusion and fear. "Why am I here? What the hell is going on?"
Silas stepped forward. Carefully. Like every movement was rehearsed.
"You collapsed in the woods," he said. "We found you. You were… Aeris, you were barely breathing."
I stared at him. The weight of the sentence didn't register. It didn't compute. Because none of this made sense.
"You're lying."
He flinched.
Kade crossed his arms from where he leaned against the wall, his voice a low growl. "You think we dragged you out here for fun?"
I looked down at my arm—now bare, IV gone, blood dried on my skin. The panic surged again, but quieter now. Coiled. Breathing.
"What is this place?"
"Our home," Ronan said. "Outside the city. No one comes here."
"That doesn't answer anything." My eyes locked on his. "Why you? Why now? You've spent four years making my life hell. What, suddenly you want to play heroes?"
He looked like I'd slapped him.
Silas stepped between us. "We didn't know. Okay? We didn't know what was happening to you at home."
A bitter laugh escaped my lips before I could stop it. "Oh, you didn't know? That's rich."
"Aeris, listen—"
"No," I snapped. "You listen. You tormented me. You mocked me in the halls, knocked my books over, called me names—Deadgirl, remember that one, Silas?"
He looked like he wanted to vanish into the floor.
I pulled the blanket tighter around me. "So why should I believe anything that comes out of your mouths now?"
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then Ronan—who hadn't taken his eyes off me for a second—took a slow step forward, crouching just enough to be eye-level.
His voice dropped to something raw. Something I'd never heard from him before.
"Because if we hadn't found you when we did," he said, "you'd be dead right now."
I didn't answer. Couldn't.
Because I could feel the truth in his voice, in the way it cracked at the edges like he was holding something back with every syllable.
And that scared me more than anything.