The room stank of sex and old motel sheets, broken dreams, and something even darker — memory. Aiden tugged against the chain, but not hard. He wasn't ready to move yet. Not while her voice wrapped around him like smoke.
Connie sat beside him, legs folded, as if they were just two kids again, not enemies, not ghosts.
"You weren't the only one in the gang," she said finally, voice low. "We all had roles. You were the shadow — the ghost that ran messages, dealt the heat, made people scared to even whisper our name."
She leaned closer. "I was the eye. I watched. I followed. I knew things before anyone else did. That's how I survived."
Aiden's throat tightened. His past, the one he'd buried in gunpowder and guilt, clawed back up to the surface. "You never told me."
"I didn't have to. You were rising so fast," she said, her voice hitching. "You were everything to them. Hell, to me."
She turned and looked at him — really looked. "I thought I could keep you safe. That if I didn't tell you I was in deep, you'd stay clean. Or cleaner than me, at least."
He scoffed, bitter. "We were broken."
She nodded. "I know. But I still tried."
"They see a broken thing. I see the cracks. That's where the light comes in." she said, as she bent down to his ear.
"I can fix us, I can make it as if you neer left" she whispered.
Aiden's jaw locked. There it is.
Her teeth grazed his ear.
He grunted. Not from pain. Not from pleasure. Just fury buried so deep it hummed.
You're a prisoner.
You knew this would happen.
You let her talk too long.
You let her get too close.
"Do you remember what you said to me that night?" she asked suddenly, lifting her gaze. "Right before you disappeared?"
He didn't respond. But she wasn't really asking.
"You said 'I'll come back for you.'"
Her voice broke. Just a hairline fracture. But it was there.
"You promised, Aiden."
She sat up, robe falling to her elbows. Her hands trembled now — not from fear, but from holding something in. Emotion, maybe. Or madness with nowhere left to go.
"Do you hate me?" she whispered.
The words sat in his throat like broken glass—sharp, impossible. The chains didn't bite anymore. Not the way Connie's voice did. Not the way her eyes begged and burned in the same breath.
She was so close, and yet… impossibly far.
"Yes, and No," he said, looking her straight in the eye.
"Why?" she whispered.
Aiden's voice was quiet but cutting, a sharp edge beneath the calm. "You burned down my apartment."
Her breath hitched. For a moment, the bravado cracked, revealing a fragile truth. "I did it so we could have a place. Just us."
His heart twisted painfully. "Mrs. P… she was there. She died in the fire."
Connie's shoulders sagged, the weight of her choice crashing down. "I didn't mean for her to get hurt. But she was... in the way."
Her voice cracked, raw and trembling. "You had her teaching you a better life, pulling you away from me. From us."
Aiden looked at her—this broken, dangerous girl who'd tried to erase the past to rewrite their future. "You burned everything down to have me."
She nodded, tears spilling free now. "Because I can't live without you. And I don't want anyone else to."
"I thought you were dead," she said, her voice wobbling just enough to betray the edge underneath.
"They said you were. Told me I had to move on. But I knew better. You don't die that easy, Shade."
Aiden's jaw tensed.
"You vanished. Left me in the dark." She ran a finger gently down the scar on his chest. "You said you'd come back."
"I had to disappear," he said finally, voice hoarse. "You wouldn't understand."
Her eyes narrowed. "I understand everything. You were mine. You are still..." she trailed off. Her voice cracked on the edge, trailing off like a confession neither wanted to say aloud.
He met her gaze, voice dropping even further. "You asked why I hate you. And why I don't?"
She blinked, a flicker of something raw crossing her face—hope, maybe, or denial.
"Because, Connie... I still care. I always have."
For a moment, the room seemed to hold its breath—two broken souls circling, bound by scars and regret, caught between destruction and the faintest pulse of something still alive.
"Who am I, Connie?"
Her smile was a flicker of madness. "You're the one who made people afraid to breathe wrong in your direction. You were real. Honest. The world broke its rules for you."