The choice I couldn’t make.
The train’s whistle screamed in the distance. The ground vibrated harder. I took a step forward, then stopped, my body frozen in place.
I closed my eyes, inhaling sharply.
Damn it all.
I turned on my heel and sprinted off the platform, the ticket fluttering from my fingers, forgotten.
My boots pounded the pavement as I raced back through the town, every instinct screaming that I was making a mistake.
But I couldn’t stop.
I didn’t stop until the warehouse loomed ahead, dark and foreboding. My chest heaved, sweat trickling down my back.
I shoved the door open, the hinges creaking in protest.
Gael was still there, still motionless. The same as I left him.
I leaned against the doorframe, my breath ragged, my heart a chaotic drumbeat in my chest.
“What the hell is wrong with me?” I whispered.
But deep down, I already knew the answer.
GAEL
The darkness swelled around me, a velvet tide of nothingness. I tried to open my eyes, but my limbs were leaden, my senses dulled.
A familiar chill prickled along my spine, one I knew all too well. I wasn’t awake. Not really.
I was trapped in a dream, but not one of my own making.
The shadows shifted, coalescing into a figure I’d known for centuries.
He emerged from the darkness, ageless and immaculate. Eyes like pools of garnet, glinting with cruel knowledge.
Beric didn’t have to say anything for me to feel the weight of his judgment, pressing down on me like a collar I couldn’t tear off.
I braced for it, for the lash of his voice or the strike of his hand. My failures bloomed like bruises across my mind.
Not once, but twice, I’d let him down.
Gabriel’s face swam in the darkness, a bitter reminder.
But instead of punishment, Beric’s fingers brushed my cheek, a featherlight touch that burned like acid. I froze.
The cool touch of his palm, so deceptively tender, coiled around my guilt and squeezed.
“Gael.” His voice was silk wrapped around a blade. “What’s really going on with you?”
The words pierced me, threading through the cracks I didn’t know were there.
I swallowed hard, the phantom heat of his touch searing into my skin.
“I’m scared,” I whispered, the words scraping raw on the way out. “That I would fail you again.”
The confession sat between us, heavier than the darkness itself.
