**~ Hazel's POV ~**
My heart—my entire soul—shivered when I heard the words slip from Cyrius's mouth.
"You'll climb that tree. You'll stay there. You'll watch them look for you. And you won't say a word."
"No… no, please don't do this," I whispered, my voice already cracking under the weight of disbelief. My fingers reached for his hand, desperate, trembling, pleading—but he snatched it away like I was some venomous thing. Like touching me would corrupt him.
"No," he hissed, and that single syllable split me open.
Then it happened. My body—it betrayed me. The compulsion surged beneath my skin, and I started to move without control, my legs guiding me toward the tree he pointed at. I turned back once—just once—and my eyes landed on Ada.
She was crying. Tiny, frail arms outstretched toward me, her baby fingers twitching in the air, reaching for a mother she could no longer touch.
