Page 157 of Ashes to Ashes

The projection that erupts above my head isn’t a single memory—it’s a montage of moments that will destroy me completely. Not generic loneliness, but specific choices. Specific moments where I chose isolation over truth, cruelty over vulnerability.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Sabina’s name lights up the screen—the third call today. I know what she wants to ask. How I’m doing. If I’m okay. When I’m coming home.

My finger hovers over the answer button.

But answering means talking. And talking means telling her that I tortured her mate in a silver-lined room. That I’ve killed seventeen people this year. That I’m not the cousin she thinks she knows.

I can’t lie to her. The truth constraint won’t let me.

But I can choose not to answer.

I let it go to voicemail.

Again.

The message she leaves breaks my heart: “Ash, I miss you. I know you’re busy saving the world, but... I need my cousin back. Please call me.”

I delete it without listening to the end.

Because hearing her voice hurts too much when I know I can never tell her what she wants to hear: that everything’s okay, that I’m still the person she thinks I am, that coming home won’t destroy everything she believes about me.

The projections continue, showing a pattern of isolation. Pepper’s wedding invitation sitting unopened for months. Christmas dinners spent alone while family gathered around empty chairs. Phone calls ignored because honest conversation would reveal truths too devastating to share.

And then the most damaging memory of all:

The call comes at 2 AM. Pepper’s name on my screen, and I know before I answer that something’s wrong.

“Ash.” Her voice is raw, broken. “I need you.”

“What happened?”

“Everything’s falling apart. The gods, the mortals hunting us, Deimos—” She’s crying so hard she can barely speak. “And I think... I think one of us is gone. Really gone.”

Lightning strikes through my bones. “Who?”

“I don’t know yet. But the connection’s severed and I can’t—I can’t hold this together anymore. I’m pregnant and exhausted and everyone’s looking at me like I’m supposed to fix this, but I can’t even?—”

“Pepper.” My voice cuts through her spiral with military precision. “Take a breath.”

“I can’t breathe, Ash. I can’t do this. They’re all going to die because of me and I?—”

And that’s when the fear hits me. Pure, primal terror that if she falls apart, if she gives up, then everything we’ve fought for dies with her decision.

That’s when I say the words that will haunt me forever:

“You don’t get to fall apart. You’re the reason we’re here in the first place.”

The silence that follows is deafening.

“What?” Her voice is so small, so broken.

“You heard me.” The words keep coming, fueled by panic I can’t control. “We’re all here because of choices you made. Decisions that put us in this position. And now, when we need you to hold it together, you want to collapse?”

“Ash—”

“No. You don’t get to create this mess and then abandon us to clean it up. You’re stronger than this.”

“I’m not.” She’s sobbing now. “I’m not strong enough, Ash. I’m drowning and I need?—”

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