Page 109 of Iron Roses

“Do you love him?” Her voice surrounds me, each question pulling at something inside.

I feel it breaking inside me, the dam I’ve built cracking under the pressure of her words.

“Yes!” I scream, breaking.

Giovanna’s smile widens, but there are tears in her eyes, soft and unspoken.

“Then fight for him.”

She steps back. She moves toward the window.

“You’re not real,” I whisper.

Giovanna’s voice is steady. “I’m not real. I’m in your head.”

But her smile is still there. She looks out the window and my heart sinks, she is asking me to escape through the window.

“I can’t jump that far,” I say, not sure if I’m trying to convince myself or her.

She turns to face me, a sly grin crossing her lips.

“Sure you can, you little monkey.”

She opens the window.

I take a deep breath, holding the phone tightly against my chest.

Giovanna watches me carefully as I edge toward the window.

“Do it,” she says.

The stone window frame presses sharp against my thighs as I hoist myself through. Cold wind slices up my arms, wrapping around my ribs like warning fingers. The drop beyond the ledge is no longer abstract—it stretches down into shadow, rough wall, thorned hedge, and somewhere below, dirt hard enough to break something if I fall wrong.

Giovanna’s voice is close—too close for someone who isn’t real.

“You’re doing it, Elaria,” she says. “You’ve already left. Now finish it.”

I swing one leg through, body twisting awkwardly, shoulders braced against the crumbling stone. My raw feet catchon the cold frame. Pain flares up my calves as I inch sideways. The window is narrow, too narrow, and the stone scrapes skin from my hips as I wedge myself through.

My chest sticks. I can't breathe for a moment. Panic claws its way up my throat.

“Breathe,” Giovanna says, her hand—light, impossibly warm—guiding my shoulder forward. “Push again.”

I grit my teeth and shove. The stone tears through my bandage. I feel blood bloom hot against cold air. But then—then I’m through. Hanging outside. One hand clenched around the window frame, my body scraping down against the exterior wall, feet kicking for a hold that doesn’t exist.

The wall is slick. Moss lines the grooves between stones, the drain pipe too far to grab. My foot slips, then finds a sliver of brick. It holds. Barely. I brace.

Giovanna’s voice hovers beside my ear. “Don’t look down. You’re almost there.”

The next step is blind. I stretch, fingers sliding across the icy surface until they catch a lower sill. My arms tremble. My shoulder screams. I shift my weight. Drop a few inches. Knees jarred. Breath ripped from my chest.

Another step. The wall narrows. No footholds left. Only the rusted lattice of an old trellis anchored near the foundation. I jump.

My grip snags metal and slips—then holds. I cling, gasping. Rust bites into my palms. The trellis groans under my weight, but it doesn’t break.

“Let go,” Giovanna says. “You’re at the bottom. You’ve made it.”

I drop. Knees slam into wet earth. My body folds forward. Dirt clings to the blood on my hands. The thorns from the hedge rake across my back where I landed too close.

---