The room felt smaller.
Not because the walls moved, but because Sienna did.
She took one slow step forward, and it was like gravity itself leaned toward her. The red emergency lights flickered again, stuttering like they couldn't decide whose side they were on.
The glass walls rattled faintly as thunder rolled overhead, low and deep, like the sky clearing its throat.
Her so-called parents didn't speak.
They watched her. That was the tell.
People who are in control talk. They explain. They justify. They smile and soften their voices and pretend they're still the ones holding the leash.
They were silent now.
Sienna's hands were clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Her breathing was steady, but I could hear the tension in it each inhale sharp, deliberate, like she was forcing herself not to shatter under the weight of everything she remembered.
She tilted her head slightly. Studied them.
Not like a daughter.
Like a stranger assessing a threat.
"You ruined me," she said quietly.
Her "mother" flinched. Just barely. But Sienna saw it.
"You called them lessons," Sienna continued.
"Discipline. Control. You said you did it because you loved me."
Her gaze snapped to her "father."
"You lied."
The word landed harder than a scream.
"You took a child who had just watched her parents die," she said, voice trembling for half a second before hardening again, "and you shaped her into something useful.
Something obedient. Something that wouldn't ask the wrong questions."
Her mother found her voice at last. "We gave you purpose..."
"No," Sienna cut in. Calm. Deadly. "You gave me a cage and called it a home."
The silence afterwards was deafening.
I felt it then the shift in her. The anger wasn't wild anymore. It wasn't lashing out in every direction.
It had narrowed, focused, and sharpened into something precise.
That was more dangerous than rage. That was intent.
I stepped closer, just enough for my shoulder to brush hers. Not to take over. Never that. Just to remind her that if the ground gave way beneath her, she wouldn't fall alone.
Her "father" raised his hands slowly. "Sienna… you don't understand the forces at play here."
She laughed.
It was soft. Broken. Almost disbelieving.
"Oh, I understand now," she said. "I understand why people disappeared. Why questions were punished. Why love always felt conditional."
Her eyes burned as they flicked between them.
"You didn't just kill my parents," she whispered. "You erased them. You erased me."
Something ugly twisted across her mother's face. "We did what we had to do to survive."
Sienna nodded once.
"Good," she said.
The word sent a chill straight through me.
"Because now," she continued, "so will I."
Thunder cracked so loud the glass walls finally gave in. A spiderweb of fractures raced across the windows, stopping just short of shattering completely.
Wind howled through the gaps, rain spraying into the room like the storm itself was trying to get closer.
Her parents stumbled back.
For the first time since I'd known them, they looked… small.
I leaned in, my voice low, meant only for her. "You don't have to decide everything right now."
She didn't look at me, but she nodded.
"I know," she whispered back. "But they don't get to walk away."
No. They didn't.
Sienna straightened, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand, not like she was ashamed of them, but like she was done with them.
"I remember everything now," she said. "And you're right about one thing."
They looked at her, desperate, searching for any hint of mercy.
"I am your greatest mistake."
I felt a slow, dangerous smile curve my mouth.
Because she wasn't bluffing.
Because the storm outside was nothing compared to the one standing in front of them.
And as the building groaned around us, alarms we didn't know when it started ringing blared, lights flickering, rain pouring through broken glass, I knew this wasn't the end of her story.
This was the beginning of theirs.
And it was going to hurt.