Page 94 of Breaking Ophelia
She looks at me then, hard. “Why did we need to run, Cai?”
I don’t answer right away. I don’t want to tell her the truth. I don’t want her to know how scared I am, how close I was to giving up and just letting the Board take us both, lock us in their little glass zoo and breed us like show dogs.
But she deserves the truth, so I give her the ugly version. The true version.
“They made a pact,” I say. “Before any of us were born. Board, Funders, Kings, all of them. The firstborn of every Hunt gets taken. Groomed. Turned into one of three things: Academy ruler, Billionaire heir, or Mafia king. No other path.”
She flinches, but doesn’t look away.
“Every match, every Hunt, every fucked-up tradition—they’re just finding out which of us are strong enough to survive. Once they know, they breed us together. The winners. The offspring don’t get a choice. The Board takes them at birth. Raises them like livestock.”
She’s quiet, but her breathing has changed. Faster. Shallow.
“My father,” I say, “gave me two weeks. Finish the ritual, claim you, get you pregnant and then never see you again, or they kill us both.”
She goes dead white.
I lean back, hands laced tight. My knuckles crack, loud as gunshots. “When I refused, I made a decision. One that severed the ties my father has with the Academy. It’s irreversible. My father has no other heirs to donate to the cause. There’s no taking it back now. If the Board wants us, they’ll send someone to burn down the house before they let us go.”
She laughs, but there’s nothing funny in it. “So this is what? A honeymoon?”
I can’t help it. I smile, sharp and quick. “Something like that.”
She doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are locked on the lake, at the way the water grinds the shore to powder. She giggles. “At least it’s nice in here. Could use some color or art… a woman’s touch.”
“Whatever you want is yours. I’ve already got wardrobes of clothing for you in our room… I preplanned for this. Just in case.”
She tucks her knees up, arms wrapped around herself. She’s so small in the cave of my jacket, hair wild, eyes gone flat. “Can you light the fire?”
“Yes, baby girl, I can light the fire.” I get up and get the fire going before sitting next to her.
The distance feels insurmountable, her life having been flipped upside down, but all I want is to hold her. Comfort her. Protect her.
I can’t stand it anymore. I pull her into my lap, arms tight around her waist. She doesn’t resist. She melts into me, breath hitching at my neck, hands curled into my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
We sit like that for a long time, the sun gone, the lake gone, just the sound of her breathing and the thud of my heart under her ear.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She lifts her head, eyes burning. “For what?”
“For everything.”
She closes her eyes, lets her head fall against my shoulder.
“Don’t be sorry,” she whispers. “Just don’t let them win.”
I nod, chin in her hair.
“Never.”
We stay there, a tangle of arms and grief, until the room is black and the only light is the cold glow of the moon, sliding up over the water like an omen.
I think about all the things I want to do to her, all the ways I want to ruin her, but for once, I don’t move.
Sometimes, survival is enough.
Sometimes, just being alive is the victory.
