Page 50 of Knot Your Fated M.U.S.E.

The ultimate betrayal – a mother destroying her child's future simply because she couldn't stand to see her succeed.

Riot stares at her trembling hands, rage and pain warring in her expression.

"I looked her in the eyes that last day, as they were taking me away. Told her if I survived this – if whatever higher powerexists gives me the chance to get out of here and return to the world – I wouldn't waste time seeking revenge. Because what could be worse punishment than her reality? Almost seventy years on this earth, and she's completely alone. No family, no friends, and she sold out her own daughter for pocket change that wouldn't cover a meal."

Her voice grows stronger, taking on an almost prophetic quality.

"I told her I hope she lives long enough to see me happy. To watch me find a pack that loves me despite everything she tried to destroy…my flaws, my 'tainted' skin, all of it. I want her to see me thrive, to know that she failed to break me completely."

The last words hang in the air between us, a testament to resilience, to the strength it takes to choose hope over hatred even in the darkest moments.

They led her away after that final declaration, and now here she sits – marked by ink and metal, shaped by pain but not defined by it, still fighting to become something more than what her mother tried to make her.

"Being in Ravenscroft made me understand my own anger," Riot continues, her voice dropping to something raw and vulnerable. "All that resentment, that fury buried under years of abuse and manipulation – it has nowhere to hide here. I keep asking myself how I could have been so blind, so stupid. But then..." Her voice catches. "How are you supposed to recognize abuse when it's all you've ever known? When there's no one around to tell you it's wrong?"

She huffs out a bitter laugh, shaking her head with almost violent energy.

"I didn't have friends who could warn me. I was already an outcast. Who steps in to help someone whose suffering doesn't directly affect them?"

I can understand this intensity of loneliness – the isolation that makes abuse possible versus escaping seems impossible.

"So that rage just builds and builds," Riot continues, gesturing to her wounds and bruises. "When they push us to our limits here, when they starve us and hurt us, all I can see is my mother's smile. All I can hear is her voice twisting everything back on me: 'I never told you to work so hard. You chose to help the family. I didn't make you live there – that was your decision.'"

Her voice takes on a mocking tone that makes Luna flinch.

"Sometimes I wonder if I did this to myself. If I'm the one who engineered my own imprisonment in this hell where we're nothing but lab rats being tortured for their amusement."

She takes a deep, shuddering breath before looking down at the floor.

"I used to be different, you know? Friendly. Talkative. Had actual dreams. This..." She gestures vaguely. "This is the most I've spoken to anyone in fifteen years. And I just turned thirty."

The weight of lost time hangs heavy in her words.

"If I die here, maybe it's for the best. How many years do I really have left to find a pack? To have pups?" Her eyes lift to meet each of ours in turn, carrying a desperate kind of clarity. "I've never really lived. Never had a real childhood. So what would I even offer a pack? What if I just repeat the cycle – rush to find alphas, have pups too soon, end up resenting everything like my mother because I never learned how to be happy with myself?"

"Nah," she says with finality. "I'd rather die."

The silence that follows feels like a living thing until she breaks it again.

"How old are you?" she asks Azurite directly.

"Twenty-five," comes the quiet response.

"And you?" She turns to Luna.

"Nineteen," Luna answers softly.

Finally, her gaze settles on me.

"And you? You never actually introduced yourself."

“Nyx,” I reveal. “I’m twenty-two. A Scorpio.”

The voices in my head approve of this small truth-sharing.

Riot's eyebrows lift slightly.

"Odd to include the zodiac, but I like it. Fits somehow." Her expression grows serious again. "Look, I'm the oldest here. The one with the least future ahead of her. If someone has to be sacrificed to get the rest out…" She spreads her hands. "I volunteer."

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