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CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

I HADN’T LEFT the room in two days.

The air inside felt heavier with each passing hour, stagnant and warm like breath held too long. My skin was tight with it, like it didn’t quite fit right anymore, like grief had warped the shape of me from the inside out.

The only sound was the fan on the ceiling, its rhythmic hum interrupted every few minutes by a weak rattle, as if it were struggling to hold itself together. I could relate. The two of us, creaking along, pretending we still worked like we were supposed to, pretending we weren’t falling apart.

I didn’t cry anymore. Not because the pain had faded—no, that would’ve been a kindness. It was because the pain had sunk so deep into my bones that even the tears had given up, too tired to rise.

My fingers toyed with the edge of the blanket wrapped around my legs, twisting it slowly, over and over, until the threads pulled taut and threatened to snap. The world outside this room kept moving—the roar of bikes and laughter filtered up from the clubhouse, the sun dragged itself across the sky and back again, but in here, everything had stopped.

A quiet knock came at the door, just two taps, and then it creaked open without waiting for permission.

Brenda stepped inside, balancing a mug of tea in one hand, her brows drawn low and firm like she’d already braced herself for the resistance she knew was coming.

“I know you’re mad,” she said plainly, her voice matter-of-fact as she shut the door behind her. “Hell, if I were in your shoes, I’d be pissed too. But you can’t keep rottin’ in here like the world ended.”

I didn’t respond. I kept my eyes on the blanket, on the twisted threads.

She crossed the room, set the mug down on the nightstand with a quiet clink, and folded her arms.

“You’re actin’ like Mystic locked you in a cage,” she continued, her voice gaining an edge. “But I’ve watched that man lose sleep over you. Miss runs. Miss work. Watch over you while you were healin’.”

The words landed hard, and though I didn’t want to give her anything, I flinched. Barely. But she caught it. Brenda always did.

She moved closer, her sandals scuffing quietly across the floor. “I’ve seen a lot of men in this life. Men who say the right things until they get what they want. Men who care more about the next ride than the woman standin’ in front of them. And yeah, Mystic? He’s got a past. But he’s not one of them.”

I turned my face toward the window, away from her, away from the truth I wasn’t ready to swallow. There was no sunlight today—only clouds pressed thick against the glass, casting everything in soft gray shadow. It matched how I felt.

Yes, I was wallowing in pity. I knew that. I knew I was curled up in a pit of my own pain and bitterness, but knowing it didn’t make it easier to crawl out.

I wasn’t like Lucy. I wasn’t like Brenda.

They had steel in their spines and fire in their blood. I… I had survived. But surviving had cost me pieces of myself I was still trying to find.

Since the night I was taken, since the world I knew was ripped away and replaced by fear, I’d barely been able to breathe without bracing. And just when I thought I could heal—just when I started to believe something good might grow from all that ruin—Mystic made me believe in him.

And then he shattered me.

“He should’ve told me,” I whispered, the words rasping up my throat like something that had been waiting too long to be spoken.

Brenda sighed, her shoulders lowering slightly. “You’re right,” she said, and there was no fight in it. “He should have. But I don’t think he lied to hurt you.”

That broke something loose in me.

I turned to her, angry and shaking, voice cracking from the sudden rise of heat in my chest.

“Stop.”

It came out like a snap, and she froze.

“Stop making excuses for him.”

Brenda didn’t move. Her gaze didn’t flinch. She just let me speak.

“I am so tired,” I said, my hands beginning to tremble, “of everyone treating him like he’s the only one allowed to be broken. Like his pain somehow makes everything he does forgivable. Like I’m supposed to just take it, be understanding, be quiet—because he’s the one carrying the weight.”

I stood suddenly, breath shallow, chest tight.

“I am not a footnote in someone else’s tragic story.”

Brenda opened her mouth, but whatever she meant to say disappeared when I kept going.

“He looked me in the eyes. He kissed me like I was his. Held me like I was safe. Like I wasn’t still flinching from every memory I couldn’t outrun.” My voice trembled harder now. “He gave me hope. And all that time—he was married, already spoken for.”

The words hung there like smoke.

“He made me believe I could start over. That I could have something real. That maybe I wasn’t broken after all. That maybe I was someone worth loving— keeping .”

My legs weakened, and I sank back onto the bed, the movement sudden, like the weight of everything had finally become too much. My hands clutched the edge of the sheets, knuckles white, breaths shaky.

“You want to know what hurts the most?” I said, quieter now, the words barely above a whisper. “I almost believed him. I almost believed this —whatever we had—was real.”

I let my head drop.

“But it’s always the same story, Brenda. Always. Men who tell you pretty lies right before they twist a knife in your chest.”

She was quiet for a long moment.

Then, gently, her voice softened. “He didn’t mean to hurt you, sweetheart.”

My jaw clenched, and my voice cracked when I answered.

“No?”

I looked up at her, raw and unraveling.

“Then why does it feel like every time I breathe, my chest caves in?”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It pulsed with grief. With anger. With everything I couldn’t say out loud. I buried my face in my hands, hating how fragile I sounded, how shattered I felt. “I can’t forgive that,” I whispered into the dark behind my palms. “I won’t.”

Brenda didn’t try to argue. Didn’t tell me to calm down or move on. She just knelt in front of me, her hands finding mine, her grip firm but gentle.

“Then don’t,” she said softly. “You don’t have to forgive him. But don’t lose yourself in the wreckage. Don’t let what he did take you with it.”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure I could.

But somewhere beneath the numbness, beneath the ache and betrayal and the hollowness carved out by disappointment—something stirred.

It wasn’t healing. Not yet.

But it was heat.

And that meant there was still something in me worth protecting.

Something still burning.