"I won't allow it. You'll live. You'll stay by my side and atone for every single day of your miserable existence. You'll drown in guilt until your last breath—and even that won't be enough."
He forced me to my knees, pinning my wrists behind my back. I had no choice but to watch each firework burst across the darkness.
"Your family will never find peace, Chloe. They don't deserve to. They weren't even human."
The last firework faded. The sky went dark.
So did the last flicker of hope inside me.
I looked up at him, tears and blood blurring my vision, and spoke slowly—each word a nail in our shared coffin.
"Your mother was innocent. But so was my father. So was my child."
"Mason... the knot between us will never come undone."
"As long as I'm alive, we'll both stay trapped in the past."
"Let me go." My voice broke. "Let yourself go."
The moment the words left my mouth, the cancer cells I'd been fighting surged through me like wildfire. Pain consumed every nerve. My vision blurred, consciousness slipping away like water through fingers.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the cramped storage room.
Sunlight streamed through the small window. I reached out, trying to catch it in my palm.