Page 81 of Freestyle
Because no, I wouldn’t have. Not if I thought the people I trusted would fly off the handle. Not if I thought they’d weaponize my fear like a reason to go to war.
Wethought we knew what we were protecting her from.
Turns out, we didn’t know a damn thing.
“She was never going to tell us,” Nix says, quieter now. “Not unless it got worse.”
I sling the bag over my shoulder. “It has gotten worse.”
We leave the dorm with the weight of her silence slamming against my ribs like a second heartbeat. The night outside is thick, and the wind has teeth.
As we cross the lawn, I keep thinking about that pony, those hollowed-out eyes. About the notes. About the ghost she’s tried to fight alone.
And I know, with a kind of fury I’ve never felt before, that the monster that left those messages…
They don’t get to haunt her quietly anymore.
“We’re going to find him.”
He doesn’t ask who. He doesn’t have to.
Alberto.
The name tastes like metal in my mouth, old blood and memory.
He thought he could crawl back in and scare her into silence, leaving gifts like traps. Signing his name like a curse. Like she’s still his to ruin.
He was wrong.
This time, the battlefield isn’t hers to walk alone.
It’s ours.
And when we find him?
We won’t bring mercy.
We’ll bring fire.
Nineteen
Phoenix
Istayawaketowatchher sleep.
Not in some possessive, poetic way. Not like the creeps from those old books she probably hates.
I stay because I don’t trust the night anymore.
She shifts under my hoodie, curled up on the far edge of the bed like she thinks she’s still taking up too much space. One hand clutches the fabric near her chest like it anchors her here, like she might drift into the dark again if she lets go.
I sit onthe floor, back against the wall with my legs stretched out, trying to pretend the ache in my ribs is just from the hardwood.
It’s not.
It’s from watching someone fall apart so quietly that you almost miss it.
We thought we were saving her—playing heroes, building shields. But she was already bleeding when we showed up. She just got real good at hiding the stains.
