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CHAPTER TWELVE

I LAY IN bed, my eyes fixed on the window, watching the way the trees moved with the breeze, soft and slow like a lullaby I could not quite remember. Mystic had opened it before he left, and the air that drifted in smelled like outside—like life beyond this room—and it felt so good I almost forgot the ache in my body.

I was still too weak to leave the bed—not truly, not without effort—but my legs ached for movement, for freedom, for something more than the silence pressing in from every side like a closing door.

From somewhere outside, a male voice reached me, low and muffled. Then another answered it, also male, unfamiliar.

“…I’m just sayin’, man,” one of them said, his tone cautious. “It’s weird. Mystic hasn’t left her side. Like—at all.”

“I noticed,” the second replied, voice more sure of itself. “He’s protective. Attached. And that’s not like him.”

“She was with Dragon Fire. What if she’s one of them?”

There was a pause, then a short breath of a laugh. “You think she’s gonna spy or some shit?”

“I think we don’t know anythin’. And he’s already lookin’ at her like she’s his.”

My chest tightened then, as if something inside was slowly being squeezed.

“She can’t even talk, and they beat the shit outta her.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s clean.”

The first man sighed, softer now. “She looked half-dead when we found her.”

“Yeah, and now she’s gettin’ better. What if her loyalties lie elsewhere?”

I did not cry, but my vision blurred anyway, not from sadness, no, but from the shame that sliced through me like glass, jagged and deep, cutting where no one could see.

“Look,” he said after a beat. “I’m not sayin’ you’re wrong to be cautious. I just think maybe… Mystic sees somethin’ in her.”

A scoff answered him. “Yeah. And that’s the part that worries me.”

Their voices faded, pulled away by distance, but the echo of their words remained, clinging to me like damp clothes I could not shake off.

I closed my eyes, and my breath came in sharp, uneven pulls, burning through my throat—not because of the damage left behind, but from the scream I kept buried, the one I couldn’t speak, couldn’t let out, couldn’t even whisper.

They think I am dangerous.

They do not trust me.

I placed a hand over my chest, pressing against the place where my heart beat too fast, trying to hold in the panic, the guilt, and the pieces of myself that kept slipping loose no matter how hard I tried to hold them together.

Mystic had told me I was safe here. He said the words like he believed them. But now the walls felt thinner, as if the safety they promised could fall away with a single breath.

I curled further into the blanket, turning my face from the window. The breeze that had once felt comforting now left a chill on my skin, and I wished he had left the window closed.

The voices, they would not leave my mind. I pressed my fingertips to my temple, trying to force the sound away, but it was not only what they said—it was how. The way they used “she” instead of my name, like I was not a person but a thing to be discussed.

But they did not know my name. How could they? Still, they were deciding what I was, who I might be, without knowing me at all.

A soft knock pulled me from the storm in my thoughts. The door opened before I could even try to answer—not that I could, anyway.

“Hey, honey,” came Brenda’s voice, gentle as ever.

She stepped inside carrying a towel folded over one arm and a bottle in her hand—lavender, if I trusted the way the scent wrapped around me. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her eyes looked tired, but they held a kind of kindness that didn’t demand anything from me.

“I figured you might want to freshen up a bit,” she said quietly, like she knew already how thin and fragile I felt today. “I thought maybe we could do your hair. No pressure.”

I gave a small nod, barely more than a breath of movement. But it was enough.

She didn’t come to me fast, didn’t rush or reach. Every step she took was slow, careful, like I was a bird too scared to fly and she didn’t want to spook me. She pulled the chair closer and sat behind me, her hands warm when they touched my hair, never grabbing, only present.

“You remind me of someone,” she said after a moment, her fingers moving gently through the strands. “Sweet girl I helped not too long ago. Quiet like you, though her voice worked just fine. She’d been through hell. Had eyes like a wild cat, always watchin’. Took months before she let me touch her hair.”

I stayed still, but my shoulders softened, just a little.

Brenda worked slow, humming something low and unfamiliar, a song I hadn’t heard, but would always remember. My mother used to hum that way when she sewed, always just under her breath, always that same rhythm.

A memory came soft, uninvited. I was maybe six, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her sewing machine in our apartment back in Istanbul. The smell of mint tea and laundry soap filled the air. She had her hair wrapped in a floral scarf, her hands steady as she worked, her voice humming that lullaby I only half understood but always felt.

“Dandini dandini dastana...”

It floated back like a ghost—an old Turkish lullaby, one she sang when I couldn’t sleep.

“Uyu yavrum, uyu...”

Sleep, my baby, sleep.

“Annem ... ” I whispered inside my heart, the word curled in silence like a secret I couldn’t speak aloud.

I let my eyes fall closed.

“There we go,” she whispered. “Let someone take care of you for once, yeah?”

A tear slid down my cheek, and I did not stop it.

She saw. I knew she did. But she didn’t speak on it. Just smoothed my hair back and kept humming like that was all the comfort I needed.

By the time she wrapped the towel around my shoulders and pressed the warm cloth to the back of my neck, my breathing had slowed again.

I was not whole. Not even close. But I did feel better.

She stood and kissed the top of my head so gently it almost undid me. Like I was her own.

“You’re safe here, sweetheart,” she said softly. “I don’t care where you came from. I care about where you are now.”

And for the first time since I came to this place...

I did not cry from pain.