Chapter 25

Elena’s POV

The corridor outside Damian’s study stretched forever, like a tunnel I couldn’t escape. My feet hardly touched the carpet. My palms were damp, trembling, still carrying the ghost weight of the tray I’d held.

His voice echoed after me, sharp as a blade.

Your hips. Your waist. Marco died for them.

The words dug in deeper than any knife. I could almost feel them lodged under my ribs, cold and merciless.

By the time I reached my room, I couldn’t even remember how I’d gotten there. My fingers fumbled with the latch, clumsy, desperate. I shut the door fast, like that could keep his voice out. It didn’t. It clung to me, low and cruel, bouncing around in my skull.

The tray was gone, but I still moved like I was carrying it shoulders stiff, chin tucked, eyes forward. That mask again. Always the mask.

The second I sat on the bed, it shattered. My shoulders collapsed, my hands fell useless into my lap. My breath came too fast, too shallow.

I told myself not to cry. Not here. Not yet. The walls were too thin, someone might hear. But the tears came anyway hot, angry, relentless. They slid down my face and soaked my palms.

I pressed a hand hard against my mouth to choke back the sound. A sob still slipped out, sharp and ugly.

All day I’d held myself together. Smiled when they shoved the uniform at me. Bit my tongue when Adrian leaned in with his filth. Pretended I didn’t notice Damian’s gaze, the way it burned and froze me at once.

But alone, I broke.

I slid down off the bed and folded myself on the floor, knees to my chest, arms locked around them. My forehead pressed hard against bone. My body shook. The small mirror across the room caught me at an angle. A girl stared back with hair tangled, eyes swollen, uniform clinging too tight to her skin.

That girl didn’t look like me. She looked hollow. She looked like a ghost.

“Marco…” His name scraped out of me in a whisper. My throat burned around it.

I wasn’t supposed to say his name in this house. Not where it could leak through the walls. But it spilled out anyway, raw, unstoppable.

Now he was gone. And Damian his brother looked at me like I was nothing but the crime itself.

I bit my lip until it split. Metal and salt filled my mouth. Tears kept coming, heavier, soaking the front of my dress until it clung to me like another wound.

My thoughts spun wild, cruel.

I can’t keep doing this.

I can’t keep standing there while they strip me down with words.

I can’t survive this.

That last one stuck. It dropped inside me like a stone, heavy, final. My lips moved again before I could stop them. “I can’t survive this.”

The sound cracked out of me, small, childlike.

Would survival even mean anything? What would be left of me by then? Just another blank face shuffling through these halls? Another pair of hands carrying trays, eyes empty, heart gone? Would I forget Marco? Forget who I used to be?

The thought made me shudder. I squeezed my arms tighter, nails carving crescents into my skin. My knees ached. My chest hurt from holding back sobs.

“I’m still here,” I whispered to the dark. “But for how long?”

My head throbbed from the crying. Slowly, I dragged myself back to the bed, collapsing onto it fully clothed. The sheets were cold against my skin. I curled toward the wall, making myself small.

The room smelled faintly of detergent and dust. Only a thin line of light crept in under the door, slicing across the floor like a blade. I stared at it until my eyes blurred.

The day replayed in fragments I couldn’t shut out Adrian’s grin as he asked if I’d spread my legs for Marco, the feel of his fingers grazing my sleeve, the fire in Damian’s eyes when he told him to back off.

For a second, just a second, I’d felt safe. Almost.

Then Damian’s words had hit harder than the slap. Your hips. Your waist. Marco died for them.

That broke something I didn’t even know I was still holding together. Because it wasn’t just an insult it was a reminder. Of Marco. Of what I’d lost. Of what I’d become.

Another sob ripped through me. I buried it in the thin pillow, but it still echoed in my head. The fabric smelled of starch and soap, nothing like home.

I thought of home anyway. My mother’s kitchen. The sun slanting through the small window. The sound of someone laughing outside. I clung to that picture like it was a lifeline.

The tears slowed eventually, leaving me hollow. My cheeks sticky, my throat raw, my eyes burning.

I curled tighter into the pillow, whispering Marco’s name one last time. Softer than before. Almost a prayer.

Sleep pulled me under at last, but the ache stayed. My knees hurt, my arms trembled, my lip still stung where I’d bitten it.

And the words I’d whispered to the dark circled back again, cruel and certain.

I can’t survive this.