By the time I made it back to my apartment, my ribs felt like someone had taken a hammer to them, my head throbbed in pulses, and the city outside my window buzzed too brightly for the state of my sanity.
I dropped my jacket over the back of a chair.
Or near it.
It hit the floor with a soft thump and stayed there.
I didn't have the energy to care.
I sank onto the bed like gravity had doubled, eased myself down until my muscles quit protesting, and stared at the ceiling.
The Association.
Sylus.
Viktor.
My life.
My brain tried to juggle them all and dropped everything at once.
I forced myself to breathe slowly—carefully—and let the options line up one by one.
Option 1: Work for both Sylus and the Hunters Association.
I almost laughed.
Juggling two jobs wasn't the issue.
Juggling two jobs when one involved Elara and the other involved Sylus?
I'd last maybe three hours.
Sylus would notice I was reporting to someone else.
He noticed everything.
And he already couldn't read me—already resented the blind spot.
Trying to split loyalties would look like betrayal before I even realized I'd betrayed anyone.
Option 1: dead.
Option 2: Quit the Association honestly.
Tell them: Hey, sorry, the most dangerous man in the city hired me overnight. Gotta run.
That'd go beautifully.
Elara would panic.
Captain Jenna would assume coercion. Or espionage. Or a psychotic break.
Then they'd investigate.
Then Sylus would find out they were investigating.
And then I wouldn't be Diana Hale anymore—I would be "the problem Sylus dealt with."
Option 2: suicide wearing a polite smile.
Option 3: Quit quietly with an excuse.
"Medical leave."
"Time to recover."
"Reevaluating my role."
Except Zayne had already seen me.
Elara knew everything.
Any sudden exit would drag both of them into suspicion.
Option 3: bad.
Option 4: Ghost the Association.
Disappear.
Go rogue.
Leave no explanation at all.
Cleanest break.
Also the most destructive.
Elara would tear the city apart looking for me.
Zayne would get dragged into the investigation as the last person I saw.
Captain Jenna would have a missing persons report filed by sundown.
And Sylus?
He would interpret my disappearance however he wanted.
Or he would find me.
Neither option was survivable.
Option 4: catastrophic.
Which left…Option 5: Do nothing.
Take the week of medical leave.
Reply to Elara.
Act normal.
Keep breathing.
Pretend nothing changed.
It was cowardly.
It was smart.
It was temporary.
And it was the only option that didn't set the whole city on fire.
I exhaled—slow, shallow, painful—and let my eyes drift shut.
One week.
One week of space.
One week to plan.
One week before Sylus's instructions arrived and dragged me wherever he wanted me next.
My phone buzzed once against the nightstand.
I didn't reach for it.
Whatever it was—whoever it was—could wait ten seconds.
My ribs ached. My eyes were half-closed. I just needed one breath—one moment where the world wasn't demanding anything from me.
The phone buzzed again.
A little insistent tremor against the wood.
I let my eyes stay shut, head pressed into the pillow.
Just one breath.
Just—
A third buzz.
I groaned and forced my arm to move, slow and stiff, careful not to twist. Pain flared hot under my ribs, but I wrapped my fingers around the phone and pulled it toward me.
The screen lit before I even lifted it.
Unknown Number: hello, little mouse
A cold ripple crawled over my skin.
I sat up on the side of the bed.
Unknown Number: you made the wrong choice
My breath caught—then failed.
Everything inside me went still.
Unknown Number: don't worry. I didn't take it personally
My pulse spiked.
Not with fear.
With something worse.
Recognition.
My ribs throbbed in brutal sync with my heartbeat, but beneath that—beneath the pain and the exhaustion—another sensation spread:
Isolation.
A sudden, crushing awareness of it.
I was alone.
Not metaphorically.
Not socially.
Fundamentally.
No family.
No friends.
No one who even knew who I was—because who I was didn't exist here.
Elara cared, yes, but she barely knew me. She couldn't understand how deep this went.
Zayne was a doctor, not a confidant.
And Sylus—if I told him I was falling apart, he would only categorize it.
There was no one I could call.
No one I could run to.
No one who would hear me if I screamed.
The loneliness hit like a blow—deep, destabilizing, terrifying in its completeness.
And then the fourth message arrived.
Unknown Number: it only made me want you more
The world narrowed to a single suffocating point.
My hands started shaking—first my fingers, then my wrists, then all the way up my arms as my breath stuttered out of rhythm.
I tried to inhale.
Failed.
Tried again—shallow, sharp, useless.
Each attempt scraped my lungs raw, pain lancing through my cracked ribs like knives.
My vision blurred.
Wrong choice.
Want you more.
Little mouse.
The words circled, choking.
I didn't realize I was crying until a hot tear slid down my cheek.
Then another.
Then too many to count.
I slammed the phone face-down on the mattress.
Then I threw it.
Hard.
It hit the wall with a violent crack and fell to the floor, screen fracturing across its surface.
But the panic didn't stop.
It got worse.
Faster.
Tighter.
Pressure closed in around my lungs, squeezing, compressing, stealing breath I already barely had. My body shook with sharp, involuntary tremors.
I pushed to my feet.
A mistake.
Agony ripped through my ribs—white and blinding—but I staggered upright anyway, as though movement could outrun fear.
It couldn't.
The room tilted.
My elbow knocked a glass off the dresser. It didn't break on the floor.
I threw it anyway.
It shattered—sharp, violent, satisfying in a way that terrified me.
A desperate sound tore from my throat—half-sob, half-scream.
I grabbed a plate and slammed it until it cracked in two jagged halves.
My breathing came in ragged, shallow gasps, each inhale failing halfway down, each exhale wet and shaking. Tears blurred everything into streaks of color and shadow.
Another object met my hand.
I hurled it at the sink.
Shards exploded across the tile.
My knees buckled on the next sob.
I caught myself on the counter—the jolt sending a spike of pain so sharp through my ribs it knocked the rest of the air out of me.
I collapsed onto the cold tile.
A broken cry escaped—small and raw.
Then everything hit at once.
The fear.
The pain.
The loneliness.
The wrong choice.
The want you more.
The crushing certainty that I was being hunted by something that enjoyed it.
I curled onto my side, instinctive and desperate.
Agony tore through my ribs—punishing, unforgiving—but the position was the only one that made me feel remotely contained.
My cheek pressed against the floor.
My hands shook violently.
Breaths came in gasps, then stutters, then thin, fractured sobs.
I didn't try to stop them.
I couldn't.
I was unraveling—completely—alone on the floor of an apartment that wasn't mine, in a world that wasn't mine, being stalked by a man I had never met but who somehow recognized me more clearly than anyone here.
Eventually the sobs weakened—not from relief, but from exhaustion.
My breaths stayed shallow.
The pain stayed sharp.
The fear stayed lodged under my ribs like a second fracture.
Across the room, my cracked phone glowed faintly where it lay—one last notification blinking at the edge of the broken screen.
I didn't move toward it.
I couldn't.
The tile beneath me was cold.
My body shook in the aftermath.
My mind echoed with four simple messages that shattered what was left of my composure.
And as the exhaustion pulled me under—heavy, inevitable—
I knew I wasn't falling asleep.
I was passing out.