Aleah's POV
I saw him.
Mysterio — half-shadow, half-myth, leaning like he always did, barely tethered to the world around him. He didn't belong to the hallway. He haunted it.
I turned, drawn like a match to gasoline.
But the second my steps closed distance, he moved — slipped away without a word, without a glance, like I was wind brushing past his sleeve. Like I was nothing.
Fine.
A sharp shoulder clipped mine.
Sage.
He didn't even bother to slow down. Just walked through me like I was air.
But this time, I didn't fall.
Not even a stumble.
Instead, I turned. Met his smug, vacant expression with ice.
Then I walked — past him, through him, over whatever ghost we ever had. My shoulder hit his as I passed, hard.
I didn't say a word.
I didn't have to.
I let him feel it — that I was no longer soft. No longer fragile. I scraped every trace of girlhood from my face, every polite pause, every ache for approval.
No more breaking.
No more bleeding for people who don't even carry bandages.
And as I walked away, I felt it — a silence in me. Cold. Sharp.
Like steel.