Page 104 of Wicked Salvation

I can’t breathe.

I blink hard against the dark. My vision swims. My body wants to curl in on itself, to protect something soft, something sacred, but there’s nothing left in me that feels untouched.

I cough, and blood hits the stones.

My limbs shake. Not just from the impact—but from something deeper. Something that’s been twisting inside me for weeks. A fever I can’t sweat out. A weakness that no medicinetouches. A hollowness under my ribs, like something’s draining out of me slowly.

I thought it was stress, maybe grief.

But I’ve never felt this sick until now, now that I’m around him.

I push myself up on shaking arms, pain flaring in my shoulder. My vision doubles, then focuses.

Silas is still there.

He looks wild. Pale. Breathing hard.

Like somehowhe’sthe victim here.

“You made me do that,” he spits, fists clenched. “You forced my hand, Eden. You don’t get to walk away from the future we planned, fromme,like I’m nothing.”

I stagger to my feet.

Every part of me throbs with pain.

One of my bags lies open nearby, books and a sweater scattered like debris.

“I didn’t make you hit me. Inevermade you hit me. You did it because you wanted to, because you thought you could get away with it,” I rasp. My lip is split. I can feel it swelling with each word I mumble. “But those days areoverSilas. I called off the engagement, the whole world knows now,” I spit—more blood. “We’re over.”

It’s like my words hit a brick wall.

“I loved you, Eden.Publicly,” he growls. “And you humiliated me. You let them laugh at me. You let him touch you?—”

“That has nothing to do with this! You lied to me about who you were.”

I can’t help but think this is all my fall. I let Silas get close to me, I let him twist himself around my spine until I couldn’t tell what was mine and what was his. I let him in—all because I thought it was the righteous, honorable thing to do.

But now?

I realize it was the biggest mistake of my life.

Everything that I thought I knew doesn’t exist anymore—and that includes whatever relationship we had. “It’s over, Silas.” Let it go.

I feel like I’m dying.

My chest aches, my vision is tunneling and that’s when I realize it’s not just from the hit. I’ve been feeling ill ever since I tossed that ring away in the streets of London. At first, I thought it was a bug I picked up.

But, it’s getting worse.

“You look like shit,” he says, almost smiling. “You can barely stand.”

I want to hit him, to scream, to set him on fire and watch him burn for all the horrible things he did to me. But I don’t. I couldn’t. I just don’t have that in me.

So, I just look him dead in the eye and say: “I’d rather die than belong to you.”

The words leave my mouth before I can take them back.

His jaw ticks, pupils dilating.