Kael's POV:
The door slammed open beneath my hand, harder than I intended, but I didn't care. Nothing mattered. No one else did. The room was too quiet, and she was right there... sitting upright in the hospital bed, her body covered by white sheets, her hair limp against her pale skin.
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
She was… smaller. Thinner. Her wrists looked like they could snap if I touched them wrong. Her skin, once flushed with that infuriating fire she always carried, was so pale it was almost translucent. And her eyes... Christ... her eyes were dulled, hollow, though the sharp bite of her glare still tried to pierce me. She looked like a shadow of herself, as if she'd been slowly withering away under my nose and I had been too blind, too consumed with my own goddamn jealousy, to see it.
I thought I'd discarded her before she could ruin me. But now, staring at her in this bed, it felt like I'd abandoned her instead. And the weight of it pressed down on me like a vice.
