Page 77 of Mate Night Snack
"The girl in the red coat," Katniss continued relentlessly. "Mabel. She reminded you of your sister, didn't she? The one who died because you were too scared to protect her. That's why you kept her longest, why you tortured her most. Because every time you looked at her, you saw your own failure reflected back."
"I said stop!"
"And the others. Each one chosen because they represented something you'd lost, something you'd failed to save, something that proved you were exactly as weak as you've always feared."
The projected visions intensified, showing not just Ashwin's crimes but the fear that drove them. The desperate need to be seen as strong, the terror of appearing vulnerable, the endless cycle of violence born from one moment of childhood helplessness.
Ashwin stumbled backward, his hands pressed to his temples as if he could physically block out the truth Katniss was forcing him to see.
"You're nothing," he gasped. "Just a frightened girl with delusions of power."
"No," Katniss said, her voice ringing with absolute certainty. "I'm the mirror you've been running from for thirty years. I'm the truth you've been trying to bury under mountains of corpses and stolen souls."
The ghostly seers around the clearing began to move, their forms growing more solid as Ashwin's hold on them wavered. Mabel stepped forward, her red coat bright as fresh blood in the moonlight.
"She's right," Mabel said, her voice carrying the weight of decades of suffering. "We see you, Ashwin. We see what you really are."
"Weak," whispered another voice.
"Afraid," added a third.
"Nothing but a scared little boy playing at being a monster."
Ashwin's confident facade cracked completely, revealing the snarling, desperate creature underneath. His pack members backed away, confusion and fear replacing their earlier predatory confidence.
"I am not weak!" he screamed, shadow magic exploding outward from his body like a shockwave.
But the Hollow Stone's ancient wards held, containing the dark energy and turning it back on itself. The backlash sentAshwin to his knees, his carefully constructed psyche fracturing under the weight of truths he'd spent a lifetime denying.
Katniss felt power surge through her connection to the Stone, felt the support of every protective ward they'd laid, every ally hidden in the shadows, every soul crying out for justice. This was her moment. Her choice. Her chance to end thirty years of terror with nothing but truth and the courage to speak it.
"You want to know what real strength is?" she asked, standing over the broken figure of her tormentor. "Real strength is choosing compassion when cruelty would be easier. Real strength is admitting fear without letting it control you. Real strength is building something beautiful instead of tearing down what others have made."
Ashwin looked up at her with eyes that held nothing but madness and rage, his carefully crafted persona shattered beyond repair.
"Real strength," Katniss said, "is everything you'll never be."
Around the clearing, she felt the hidden watchers beginning to move. The trap was sprung, the prey was broken, and now came the moment of justice.
But first, there were souls to free and wrongs to right.
33
EMMETT
Emmett watched from the shadows as Katniss broke Ashwin apart with nothing but truth and courage, pride swelling in his chest like a physical force. She stood in the moonlight like an avenging angel, her seer abilities blazing with power that made the air itself shimmer. This was what she'd been born for, what all her training and suffering had led to.
But the moment Ashwin's facade cracked, when madness replaced cunning in those yellow eyes, Emmett's wolf began to snarl a warning.
Broken predators were the most dangerous kind.
"You think you've won?" Ashwin's voice came out as a rasp, his human form beginning to blur at the edges. "You think pretty words and painful truths make you strong?"
"I think they make me honest," Katniss replied, but Emmett could hear the tension creeping into her voice. She sensed it too, the shift from psychological warfare to something more primal.
"Honesty." Ashwin laughed, the sound like bones breaking. "Let me show you the honest truth about predators and prey."
The transformation happened faster than thought. One moment Ashwin knelt on the forest floor in human form, thenext a massive black wolf launched itself at Katniss with killing intent blazing in its eyes. No finesse, no strategy, just raw violence and the desperate fury of a creature with nothing left to lose.
