Page 21 of Wraith

And me. Just standing there. Just… watching.

“We had a choice,” I said again, my voice shaking. “We had a choice, and we chose wrong.”

My feet carried me toward the library, its tall glass windows glowing faintly in the distance. The lights inside were dim, most of the students gone for the night, but the building still held a strange sense of life. Like it was always watching, always waiting.

I stepped inside, the warmth of the building washing over me like a weight I didn’t deserve. The smell of old books and dustfilled the air, and for a moment, I let myself breathe it in, hoping it might ground me.

It didn’t.

I wandered through the aisles, my fingers brushing against the spines of books without really seeing them. My mind was elsewhere—back in the theater, back on the stage, back to the moment when everything shattered.

She’d been so hopeful when she walked in that night. So fucking beautiful. I remembered the way her eyes lit up when she saw us, like she thought we’d finally accepted her. Like she thought this was the beginning of something new.

And we’d destroyed her. Just like I feared we would.

“We had no choice,” I whispered, repeating the lie I’d told myself a hundred times.

But it wasn’t true. We did have a choice. And I chose wrong.

Was the alternativethatbad? The choice where she was mine? I sank into one of the chairs near the back of the library, my head in my hands. The silence pressed down on me, suffocating and relentless, until I thought I might scream just to break it.

I clenched my fists, the words tangling in my throat as the bonds stirred again.

I’d thought about leaving. About disappearing and starting over somewhere far away from this place and everything it held. But the bond wouldn’t let me. It tied me here, to this campus, to this guilt, to her.

But even that was a lie.

The bond wasn’t stopping me from leaving. I just didn’t deserve to leave. I didn’t deserve to forget. If she never got to leave this place, why do I deserve to?

The clock on the wall ticked loudly, each second dragging by like an eternity. I stared at it, my mind blank and buzzing all at once, until the numbers blurred together.

What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to fix this?

The answer was simple.

I couldn’t.

I pushed myself up from the chair, my legs shaking as I stumbled toward the exit. The night air hit me like a slap, sharp and cold, but it was better than the suffocating warmth inside.

The bonds throbbed faintly, pulling me toward the dorms, toward the others. But I couldn’t face them. Not tonight. Not when I could still hear her voice, still see her face, still feel the weight of her final moments pressing down on my chest.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

But the words meant nothing now—too little, too late, lost to the night like a breath that would never reach her.

And I kept walking.

Thirteen

The café smelledlike burnt coffee and stale pastries, the kind of place that was meant to feel cozy but just felt tired. Aeron sat in the booth across from me, scrolling through his phone with the same detached expression he always wore. He looked up when I slid into the seat, his brow raising slightly.

“Didn’t think you were the social type these days,” he said, tucking his phone into his pocket.

“Didn’t think you were either,” I shot back, shrugging out of my jacket. “Surprised you’re not holed up in the library or something.”

He smirked faintly, leaning back in the booth. “Needed a change of scenery. Thorne’s unbearable, Kael’s losing his mind, and Lucian… well, you know.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to respond. The bond flickered faintly in the back of my mind, that same hollow echo it always was, a reminder of what should have been but wasn’t. It gnawed at me, a thread tied to nothing, pulling me toward memories I couldn’t face.

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