Chapter Nineteen
Ronan
Pain. Panic. Drowsiness. They’ve become my entire world—my reality stitched together with jagged breaths and half-formed thoughts. I float in and out of awareness, trapped in a haze so thick I can’t tell where my body ends, and the fear begins. Time doesn’t exist here. There’s only the weight pressing down on my chest, and the dull throb of pain that pulses through every inch of me like a second heartbeat.
There’s something wrong—I know that much. An emergency hovering just outside the edge of understanding, close enough to feel but impossible to hold. Every time I reach for it, try to grasp the shape of what’s gone wrong, it slips away. The panic it leaves behind is sharper than the pain. An urgency I can’t explain. I don’t know where I am, what happened, or who else might be bleeding... dying. All I know is that I can’t move. And that something’s very, very wrong.
Voices echo in the distance—familiar but warped through the fog. Arguing. Frustration. Fear. My brothers. That much I know. I’d know them in the dark, in the silence, in the middle of hell itself. The sound of them should calm me, and for a moment, it does. Their presence grounds me just enough to make the darkness feel less endless. Less alone.
But the panic doesn’t leave. It coils in my gut, thick and suffocating, feeding on the things Idon’tremember. My body is heavy, like it’s not mine. I try to open my eyes, try to speak, but everything’s locked down tight. No matter how hard I fight, I’m trapped—between pain, between voices, between that flickering awareness that something is missing.
Something... or someone.
And until I figure out what it is, I can’t breathe right.
After what feels like days—maybe longer—something inside me shifts. The fog doesn’t lift all at once, but it thins, just enough for threads of awareness to seep through. The veil between unconsciousness and waking sharpens, no longer the impenetrable wall it was before. My body still aches, heavy and uncooperative, but my mind... it’s waking up.
The world around me slowly comes back into focus. Sounds that were once smeared together begin to sharpen, filtering in piece by piece. At first, it’s only cadence—voices rising and falling like water rattling through cracked pipes. Then, little by little, the noise breaks apart. Words emerge. Sentences take shape.
And I know exactly who they belong to.
My brothers.
Their voices come in and out like a radio struggling for signal, but this time I catch more than just tone. I catch content. They’re talking about the shooter. About the one who put me on this bed. They say they caught her, but that she isn’t giving themanything. Silence. Stonewalling. Every tactic they’ve used has failed.
But that’s not what sticks.
It’s a single word. A simple one.
Her.
The way it lands in the middle of their conversation hits like a shock to my system. My body still feels like lead, but that one-word slices through the fog like a blade.Her. The focus shifts when they say it. It’s not just about catching someone. It’s aboutwho.
And suddenly, none of the pain matters.
None of the haze, none of the weakness clawing through my limbs.
I need to knowwhothey’re talking about.
Because if it’s who I think it is—if it’sher—then this stops being about what they did to me. It becomes about what I’m going to do tothemthe second I can stand, breathe, and make them understand exactly what they’ve done.
I can’t move, but it’s not just the damage to my body holding me down—it’s the rage. Imaginary restraints pin me to this bed as I lie here, helpless, listening to Rowen’s voice. He doesn’t know I can hear him. He doesn’t know I’m here in the haze, hanging on his every word like a lifeline… or a death sentence. And right now, all I want to do is lunge off this mattress and put my hands around his damn throat.
He’s talking about her.
My Pixie.
He doesn’t say her name, neither of them does, and that’s the first red flag. That’s when it hits me like another blow to the chest: she hasn’t told them who she is. Not even her name. She’s down there, taking every hit, every word, every tactic they throw at her—and she’s keeping her mouth shut.
My stomach turns.
They have no idea who they’re hurting. No idea that the girl they’re trying to break is the one person in this world who would’ve taken a bullet for any of us. Hell, she nearly did.
More of their conversation filters through the red haze clouding my thoughts. She hasn’t spoken. Not once. No explanations. No plea. Not even a name. And in our world, silence means guilt. Silence means punishment.
But she’s enduring it.Voluntarily.
Why? Why the hell wouldn’t she just tell them who she is? If they knew, they’d stop. Wouldn’t they?