Mira had only made it halfway down the street when the pain finally began to settle in, creeping through her body in slow, deliberate waves, as though it had been waiting for the right moment to make itself known.
At first, she had been moving on nothing but instinct, carried forward by adrenaline and the quiet, urgent need to put distance between herself and the place she had just left, between herself and the eyes, the voices, the questions she had refused to stay for. Her body had obeyed without protest, driven by momentum rather than awareness.
Now, with the rush fading, her body was beginning to collect what it was owed.
Each step sent a dull, spreading ache through her legs, starting low and climbing upward, tightening around her muscles like invisible hands. Her ribs flared sharply with every deeper breath, a warning she tried to ignore, and she found herself inhaling more shallowly without meaning to, as if that might somehow make the pain behave.
She slowed, not because she wanted to, but because she had to, carefully recalibrating her movements so they wouldn't betray her.
She adjusted her stride, smoothing it out, forcing it into something that looked unremarkable, something that wouldn't invite concern or curiosity. No limping. No hesitation. No visible signs of weakness.
Just another person walking home, just another afternoon, just another ordinary moment.
Even as every muscle protested.
Even as her body reminded her, quietly but insistently, that what she had done had not been painless.
That was when she felt the faint vibration against her ribs, subtle but insistent, humming through the fabric of her jacket and into her awareness.
For a brief moment, her hand paused at her side, as though her body needed permission to move again, before she slid her fingers into the pocket with a quiet, almost unconscious sense of relief.
Her phone was still there.
The simple confirmation grounded her more than it should have, a small, irrational comfort in the middle of everything else that felt uncertain and out of control.
She wrapped her fingers around it, steadying herself before pulling it out, as if the weight of it alone reminded her that she still existed, that she hadn't slipped entirely into the haze of pain and instinct she'd been moving through.
Good.
She still had her phone.
The screen lit up with Cassian's name.
Her heart stuttered.
She answered before it could ring again, her thumb pressing the screen with a little more urgency than she meant to show. "Hi."
"I just landed," Cassian said, his voice calm, controlled, and achingly familiar in a way that felt almost dangerous, slipping through her defenses far too easily. "I'm at the airport now."
Mira closed her eyes for a brief moment, steadying herself before responding, her fingers tightening slightly around the phone as she measured her breath.
"That was fast," she said, carefully light, as though speed were the only remarkable thing about this moment.
"I had no intention of delaying," he replied, the faintest hint of something indulgent beneath the formality of his tone. "Did you go out like you said you would?"
"Yes," she answered quickly, the word leaving her too fast, too sharp, before she smoothed it out. "I mean—yes, I did."
There was a pause.
It was small, barely noticeable, the kind most people would have missed entirely.
Cassian did not.
"Did you get everything you needed?" he asked, his voice even, but focused. "Your school supplies."
Mira swallowed, her throat suddenly too dry. "I did."
That wasn't a lie.
It was just… incomplete.
"Good," he said, and then his tone shifted slightly, becoming quieter, more deliberate, more personal. "You sound tired."
She forced a small, careful laugh, the kind that existed only to disguise things. "I walked more than I expected," she said lightly. "That's all."
She kept her steps steady as she spoke, kept her breathing controlled, kept her voice from betraying the ache spreading through her body, even as every instinct urged her to stop and rest.
Because if Cassian heard the truth in her voice, he would not let it go.
And she could not afford that.
Another pause, this one longer.
On the other end of the line, Mira could hear movement—the faint shuffle of footsteps, the rolling of luggage across polished floors, the low murmur of overlapping conversations, and the distant echo of airport announcements bleeding into one another in soft, impersonal waves.
The world around Cassian sounded busy, fast, already pulling him forward even as he stayed on the line with her. Beneath all of it, unmistakable and far too loud, was Rafe's voice, sharp with impatience and completely unconcerned with subtlety.
"Cass, if you don't get in that car right now, you're going to miss the window," Rafe said, not bothering to lower his voice in the slightest.
Mira could almost picture it—Rafe pacing beside a sleek black vehicle, one hand on the open door, the other gesturing in sharp movements as if urgency alone could physically drag Cassian into motion.
Cassian exhaled slowly, the sound measured and restrained.
"I have to go to the company first," he said, directing his words back to her. "Something urgent came up."
"Oh," Mira replied, a little too quickly, the word slipping out before she could smooth it into something softer. "That's fine."
She shifted slightly where she stood, wincing as the movement tugged at her ribs. The ache was manageable, but present, a steady reminder beneath her calm tone.
"I actually—" she began, then paused.
"What is it?" Cassian asked immediately, the shift in his voice subtle but sharp enough to catch.
"It's nothing," she said, too fast again.
"Mira."
The way he said her name wasn't accusatory. It was attentive.
She looked down at her hand, at the faint tremor she hadn't realized was there. "I just had a small… incident," she said carefully, testing the word as it left her mouth. "It's really not a big deal."
There was a brief silence on the other end, and she could almost feel his attention narrow.
"What kind of incident?" he asked, his tone changing—not louder, not colder, but focused in a way that made her pulse quicken.
Before she could answer, Rafe cut in again.
"Cassian."
This time his voice was closer, more pointed. "Now."
Mira heard the car door close. Heard the faint thud of luggage being loaded. Heard the clock ticking in the background without anyone actually saying it.
She swallowed.
"It was just… I tripped," she amended quickly. "I'm fine. I just thought I should mention it."
"You tripped," Cassian repeated, and there was something in his voice now that told her he did not believe that was the full story.
"Yes," she said lightly. "It was clumsy. Very unremarkable."
Rafe muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "We are out of time."
Mira closed her eyes for half a second.
She could tell him.
She could tell him about the boy, the car, the impact, the way the pavement had burned against her skin. She could hear exactly how the silence would fall on his end. She could imagine the shift in his breathing, the way the world around him would stop mattering.
And she could not do that to him—not when he was about to step into something important, something urgent enough that Rafe was practically dragging him forward.
"Mira," Cassian said again, more quietly now. "Are you sure you're all right?"
Her fingers tightened around the phone. She forced a smile he couldn't see, shaping it into her voice the way she had learned to do so well, making it sound effortless, harmless, believable.
"I'm fine," she said. "I promise."
Rafe cleared his throat loudly in the background, exaggerated and pointed, a reminder that time was slipping through their fingers.
Cassian hesitated.
It was brief, almost imperceptible, but she felt it the way one felt the pressure change before a storm.
"All right," he said at last, his voice returning to its usual controlled calm. "We'll talk later."
"Okay," she replied softly.
The line went dead.
Mira lowered the phone slowly, the quiet of her own space settling in around her.
The words she hadn't said lingered in the air, heavier than the ones she had.