EMMA
The mansion greeted me with silence.
Not the soft, comforting kind but the sort that pressed against your ears like thick fog. Like the house itself knew I was cracked open and bleeding, and decided to mourn with me.
I slipped inside my room without turning on the light. Shadows curled in the corners. The moon's silver fingers reached across the floorboards, stopping just short of the edge of my bed.
I didn't climb into it. I dropped onto the small cot by the balcony window instead of the one I used when the bed felt too much like someone else's idea of comfort. When I needed something colder. Smaller. Mine.
My legs curled beneath me, arms wrapped around a pillow that smelled faintly of lavender and old dust.
You could have let him explain, my wolf said gently, her voice no longer firm just tired. You didn't have to reject him like that.
"I did," I whispered aloud, voice raw from earlier. "He wanted to use me as a solution. Like I'm some… answer to a problem he created."
