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My throat locks as I do not have an answer.

Fight it? Surrender to it? Give up on me? On us?

She has already done all of those things.

And I am the only one still pretending she hasn’t.

Her lips part, and for a moment—just a fucking moment—I think she might tell me something I want to hear.

Something I can hold onto.

Something I can use to convince myself that there is still time, that I have not already lost her.

But instead—she ends me.

"Would it be so bad?" she murmurs.

The words are soft.

Too soft.

Not a question.

Not a taunt.

A fucking surrender.

Would it be so bad if she wasn’t human anymore?

What if she let it happen?

Would it be a disaster if she gave in?

I feel the breath leave my body, dragged out of me like a fucking death sentence.

She means it.

She has already made up her mind.

Naira is already gone.

And I am too fucking late.

But I can’t let go. I cannot.

I fucking refuse.

If she is going to do this—she is going to look me in the eyes while she does it.

She is going to face me, to tell me to my fucking face that she has given up, that she has stopped fighting, that she is letting the relic take her and that I should just accept it.

She is going to say it.

“Tell me!”

She just watches me.

Cool.