Page 108 of Scarred in Silence
Instead, I reach for the phone on the bed and scroll until I see her name.
Evelyn.
I haven’t talked to her since everything went to Hell after the supervised visit.
But now… I just need to hear someone who knows me outside of all this.
Someone who remembers who I was before Lucien. Before Amara died.
Before I traded freedom for fire.
I press call.
She picks up on the second ring.
“Astra?” Her voice is breathless. Guarded.
I almost hang up.
But then she says softer, “Are you okay?”
I close my eyes and let the sound of her voice steady me. “No.”
She’s quiet. Not the awkward kind of quiet. Just… listening.
“I did it,” I whisper.
“Did what?”
“I watched Lucien kill Miles.”
She doesn’t gasp. She doesn’t scream. Just inhales slowly, like she knew it was coming.
“I told him to take his eyes first,” I admit. “So he couldn’t see what was coming next.”
The silence stretches so long I think she’s hung up.
Then, she says, “I would’ve told him to take his fucking heart.”
A hollow laugh escapes me—half relief, half grief. “Jesus, Ev.”
“You think I don’t know what Miles did to you?” she says, voice shaking.
“You think I didn’t lie awake for hours imagining what I’d do if I got five minutes alone with him?”
I press the phone tighter to my ear, like proximity might make this feel more real.
“I keep trying to convince myself that Lucien saved me,” I say. “That this… life… was my only way out.”
“Was it?”
“I don’t know anymore.” My throat tightens. “Sometimes I think he just gave me new shackles and called them diamonds.”
Evelyn sighs on the other end.
“I won’t pretend I understand him. But I know you.”
“You don’t know this version of me.”
