Page 178 of Discordant Cultivation

The first impact was her shoulder against the wooden railing, a hollow thud that made Kieran’s stomach lurch. Her body twisted, momentum carrying her sideways, and her hip caught the edge of a step with a crack that might have been wood or bone.

Kieran watched her fall and couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but stand there with his hand still extended toward empty air.

Her head struck the third step from the bottom. The sound was wet and wrong—not the sharp crack he’d expected but something softer, more final. Her neck bent at an angle that human anatomy wasn’t designed to accommodate, and then she was sliding, tumbling, her limbs loose and graceless until she came to rest at the base of the stairs.

Still.

Too still.

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the hum of the recording equipment seemed to fade, leaving nothing but Kieran’s ragged breathing and the thundering of his own pulse.

Get up. Please get up. Please please please—

But Jericho didn’t move. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing, and her head was bent at that terrible angle that meant—that meant—

“JERICHO!” Alex’s scream shattered the silence. He shoved past Kieran, nearly sending him tumbling too, and took the stairs three at a time.

Kieran’s legs gave out. He sat hard on the landing, unable to move, unable to breathe, watching as Alex knelt beside Jericho’s body with shaking hands.

He checked her pulse, first at her neck, then at her wrist, searching for any sign of life.

When Alex looked up at Kieran, his face was a mask of pure horror. “You killed her. Oh my god. You killed her.”

No. No, I didn’t mean—I just wanted her to stop touching me. I just wanted her to let go. I didn’t—

The metallic taste in Kieran’s mouth intensified as the edges of his vision began to shimmer, an aura building with the inevitability of a storm that couldn’t be stopped.

No. Not now. Please not now. Vale. I need Vale.

But Vale was hours away, and Jericho was dead at the bottom of the basement stairs, and Alex was staring at Kieran like he was a monster.

And maybe—maybe he was right.

56

Now your voice is in my head like it's my own, like I'm grown from the seeds you've sown and I've known all along this was home…

Kieran

Alex’s breathing changed first—rapid, shallow gasps that didn’t seem to pull in enough air. Kieran watched from the landing, still frozen, as Alex backed away from Jericho’s body with stumbling steps that looked more like falling in reverse.

“Not again.” Alex’s voice came out strangled, barely human. “Not this room. Not this fucking room again.”

He hit the wall near the recording equipment, sliding down until he was sitting on the concrete floor, knees pulled to his chest. His hands clawed at his throat like he was trying to rip away invisible restraints, and the sounds coming from him weren’t quite sobs, weren’t quite screams—something worse, something that came from a place Kieran recognized.

This room does that to him. Vale did that to him.

But the observation was distant, muffled, like watching something happen on a screen instead of a few feet away.

Vale’s voice filled his head, clear and calm:Breathe, sweetheart. Calm yourself. You know what to do.

Kieran’s hands moved to his own throat without conscious thought, his fingers finding his windpipe. Squeezed. Held. Thepressure built in his head until his pulse throbbed against his palms. The panic smoothed into something manageable.

Good boy. That’s it. Just like I taught you.

Alex’s hyperventilating faded to background noise. Jericho’s body at the bottom of the stairs became just another object in the space rather than a person who’d been alive minutes ago. Rational thought slipped away, replaced by survival instinct and Vale’s voice guiding him through it.

They came here to take you away from me. They wanted to separate us.