Page 36 of Lustling

Disappointment. Maybe even abandonment.

Good.

Let her feel it. Let her stew in it. Let her wonder if we meant it, if we used her. Let her ache a little for the ones who remade her. It will teach her something. Make her sharper. Hungrier. Stronger.

But then—she pauses.

Just outside Cassiel’s door.

Her head turns ever so slightly. The muscles in her jaw tighten. Her lips part like she’s about to say something and then doesn’t. She stares for too long.Lingers.

And a splinter of heat stabs through me. Ugly and fast. Does shewanthim?

The question slams into me, leaving its teeth behind. My spine locks, every nerve pulled taut. She saw him, didn’t she? Saw the way he touched her. So gentle. So reverent. Like she was some holy thing he’d spent eternity praying for. The way he wiped her brow. The way he smoothed the sweat from her collarbone like he was born to serve her.

What if she liked that? What if she prefers softness? Kindness? What if shechooseshim? My teeth grind, pressure mounting until I swear I feel enamel crack.

The bond between us—still so new, so raw—flares like a blade drawn too fast from its sheath. It scorches down my back, over my shoulders, searing through the muscles like wildfire.

She’smine.

It doesn’t matter if it’s irrational. Doesn’t matter if it makes me sound feral or fucked in the head. I’ll own it. If she moans his name in the dark, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.

Eventually, she drifts outside.

Bare feet skim the dew-damp grass; her borrowed shorts clinging to her thighs. She doesn’t move with purpose, not exactly—but she doesn’t wander either. It’s like her bodyrememberseven if her mind hasn’t caught up. I follow froma distance, careful not to break a twig or shift the wind. She doesn’t sense me.

Not yet.

She retraces her path through the woods, steps finding the old rhythm. Her shoulders straighten when she recognizes the edge of campus. She’s looking for something. And when she drops to her knees, fingers scrabbling through the leaves and underbrush, I already know.

The phone. Her last thread to the old world.

And when her fingers close around the dirt-slick device, when her thumb brushes the cracked screen and it lights up like it still belongs to her—Ifeelher relief.

She still believes this can anchor her.

She thinks technology, texts, school calendars, and dorm rooms will tether her to who she used to be. But none of that matters now. The old world won’t come for her. It couldn’t even if it tried.

The life she knew is ash, already scattered. She just doesn’t know it yet.

Then—voices. Faint at first, like laughter bouncing off brick. I recognize one before I even register the words.

Shawn.

I go still.

He’s close. Close enough that she could find him by accident. His voice cuts through the trees, unmistakable in its arrogance. Mocking. Loud and lazy, like someone who’s never been hunted. His friends bark out an ugly laughter, clearly drunk on their own cruelty.

She hears them a moment later.

I watch the way she stills, eyes narrowing. She doesn’t run. Doesn’t call out. She presses herself into shadow, body folding low like instinct has already begun its rewiring.

I don’t interfere.

Gods, I want to. I want to tear him open. Paint the forest floor in the red smear of his spine. Snap his jaw for even talking about her.For the way he treated her. For daring to exist in the same hour she was born again.

But this moment isn’t mine. It’shers.