“Val!”

She collapsed.

One second she was fighting the restraints, breathing through the pain, still glaring at the world like she refused to lose—

The next, she went limp.

And something inside me snapped.

Not broken.

Locked.

Like a chain slamming into place so hard it shook everything attached to it.

Pain flooded through me—not physical, not clean. It ripped through my chest and skull and spine all at once. For a second, I couldn’t hear anything. Couldn’t see.

Couldn’t ...