Page 179 of Discordant Cultivation

Kieran’s vision tunneled further, the basement reduced to a narrow point of focus. His hands stayed at his throat, maintaining the pressure that kept him grounded.

Alex was sobbing against the wall, barely coherent words tumbling out between gasps, “Can’t breathe, can’t be here, he hurt me here, he broke me here—”

Kieran descended the stairs on numb legs, stepping around Jericho’s body without looking at it. The microphone stand stood a few feet away inside the recording booth. It was designed to be stable, weighted at the base. He stared at it.

Sweetheart, they want to take you away from me. You can’t let them do that.

His hands released his throat. He moved toward the stand, each step belonging to someone else. Lifting it—heavier than expected, awkward with its boom arm extended.

For one terrible moment, clarity broke through the fog.

I’m going to hurt him. I’m holding a weapon and I’m going to—

But then Vale’s voice again, soft and certain, filled his mind:He would have taken you from me. He would have destroyed everything we’ve built together.

Alex looked up, eyes widening with recognition of what was about to happen. “No—wait—Thorn, please—”

He tried to scramble away, his panic attack forgotten in the face of immediate danger. But the corner had him trapped, nowhere to go, just empty attempts to shield himself with hands that wouldn’t stop anything.

Kieran swung.

There was a little resistance, followed by give and the distinct crack of a bone breaking. Alex’s scream was raw, agonized, a sound that should have shocked Kieran back to awareness.

Instead, he just stood there, microphone stand still in his hands, staring at Alex’s leg bent wrong below the knee, white bone visible through torn skin and fabric.

What did I—

But the thought dissolved before completing. No horror, no remorse, just numbness spreading like ice water through his veins. And nausea—overwhelming revulsion at the compound fracture, at the blood, at what his hands had done.

Kieran dropped the stand. It hit the concrete with a metallic clang that Alex barely registered through his screaming.

“HELP! SOMEONE HELP! PLEASE!” Alex’s voice cracked, desperate, terrified. “CALL AN AMBULANCE! CALL—”

Too loud. He’s too loud. I can’t think with him screaming like that.

Kieran moved toward Alex on unsteady legs, dropping to his knees beside him. His hands found Alex’s face, forcing eye contact through the man’s tears and terror.

“P-Please be quiet,” Kieran whispered. “Please let me th-think. I need time to think.”

“You’re insane,” Alex sobbed, trying to pull away but going nowhere with his shattered leg. “You’re fucking insane, he made you insane—”

The hood. I need the hood. I need silence.

Kieran stood, leaving Alex’s pleas behind as he moved to the equipment storage. The sensory deprivation hood sat exactly where Vale always kept it.

He pulled it over his head.

Immediate darkness. Immediate silence. Alex’s screaming reduced to barely perceptible vibration over the roaring in his ears. Kieran fumbled for the noise-canceling headphones, settling them over the hood, and the world condensed to just his breathing and his heartbeat.

Better. This is better.

Some distant part of him knew what he was doing—blocking out a man with a broken leg, a man bleeding and terrified and begging for help, so he could have quiet. So he could think. The horror of that should have been overwhelming.

Instead, it was just necessary.

Vale will know what to do. Vale will fix this. I just need to wait for Vale.

In the isolation, his mind began to clear. The panic receded, the dissociation lifting just enough for thought to become linear again. And with clarity came the final bridge section that had eluded him all day.