Page 8 of Break Her Heart
The silence filled the room. Something I usually despised as it let the dark thoughts take hold of my mind a little tighter, but for now, I let it happen. There wouldn’t be any more silence once they came for me. Someone would always be watching me.Protectingme.
I stood. My body barely remembered how. The wreckage around me wasn’t new—I’d done it hours ago. Glass shards sparkled in the corners like fallen stars. Books with their spines ripped open. Blood smeared across the stone like art. My own, I thought. I didn’t feel it anymore. I’d destroyed everything. Except the fury.
No pain. No bruises. Just the ghost of rage crawling under my skin like worms.
I walked the room like a ghost. The wind outside howled, but it was nothing compared to what screamed inside me.
She said she loved me.
Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe I made that part up.
But gods, I felt it. Every moment with her was etched into my skin like scripture. I remembered the way her breath caught when I touched her wrist. The way she looked at me when she thought I wasn’t watching. The way she whispered my name like it meant something sacred.
She was in my blood. My bones. I couldn’t find the edges of myself anymore without finding her too. She wasn’t just a memory.
She was a hunger.
I turned in the ruin, chest heaving. The wind hissed through broken panes and dragged the curtains like specters across the floor. It all looked how I felt. Shattered. She had made me beg.Me.August. And I did it. I would’ve given her my fucking heart if she asked for it. And all along, she was twisting the knife.
I hated her. Hated the way I still thought about her. The way I still wanted her.
I reached for the bottle—empty. I crushed it against the wall, watching it explode like a star dying. Beautiful and pointless. The rage pulsed in my bones. But below it, darker and crueler, throbbed something else.
Need.
And I hated her for that most of all.
The journal lay open like a wound. I’d read every damn line, searching for answers. Nothing but ink and emptiness. Confusion. Madness. Carrow was fucking insane from the beginning. The kind of madness that hides in genius. That masquerades as brilliance until it’s too late to run.
He wrote in circles—pages full of half-sentences and loops. Names scratched out. Symbols I didn’t recognize. I didn’t know what they meant. But I read it anyway.
Again. And again.
I wondered if he was already in me. Waiting. Watching. Laughing at how I had been fooled. Sometimes I swore I heard him. A whisper when no one was near. A voice in my own head that wasn’t mine. Telling me to hurt. To destroy. Toburn.
I caught my reflection in the glass and my eyes seemed darker. My smile a little too wide. Maybe I did inherit something from him. Maybe I was never supposed to survive him. Maybe I was only ever meant to become him.
I slammed the journal shut. My hands were trembling.
A creak. My head snapped toward the door.
No scent.
The cloak. Fucking magic.
Don’t be insane, I warned myself. Not now. Not yet. She needed charm and control. Not teeth and claws.
The door cracked open just a sliver, and for a moment, I thought I was hallucinating again. My body locked up. The shadows shifted, but they didn’t move like ghosts. They moved like her.
Her hood slipped back slowly. Those eyes—gods, those eyes—met mine.
I didn’t believe it was real until the scent hit me, warm and sharp, soaked in jasmine and memory. For a breath, I just stared. Silent. Staggered. If I blinked, she might vanish.
And I said nothing. I couldn’t. If I opened my mouth, I might confess everything. Or tear her throat out. The words clawed up, burning. I swallowed them.
Then I smelled something too late. Something wild andmalebehind me.
The blade tore through me.
