72

SEBASTIAN—A week ago (Nytherin attack)

The house was too quiet, and yet everything Claire did was too loud.

The way she sighed when she walked. The way she groaned, dropped things, asked questions she already knew the answers to. Even the sound of her chewing grated on my nerves. I couldn’t tell if she was being intentionally annoying or if I’d finally started seeing her for what she was—what I traded everything for.

She was crying again. Or pretending to. I couldn’t tell anymore.

“You said you’d make this work,” she’d snapped after throwing a pillow at my back. “You said we’d be a family.”

And I’d wanted to scream, I had a family. I had one.

But I didn’t. I just stood there, watching her cradle her stomach like it was a shield she could use against the weight of what we’d done. What I’d done.

She didn't even clean anymore. The whole house is a mess.

I left without a word. Didn’t grab a jacket, didn’t grab my wallet. Just keys and a bitter taste in my mouth as I walked towards my car.

I didn’t know where I was driving at first. I just needed to move. And think.

And then I saw the street signs. The crest of Harrington & Vale on a billboard. Thea's workplace.

Thea, who I built everything from the ground up with, and I gave up while at it. I picked it apart. Us. Thea, who still made headlines without even trying. Thea, whose smile wasn’t mine anymore.

I don't stop. I continued driving, but now, with a place as my destination and someone as my goal.

Her place.

Her.

I just wanted her back. That’s all.

Not because I couldn’t live without her—though I couldn’t. Not because everything fell apart the moment she left—though it did. But because she was mine. She always had been.

We had a life. A family. A history too thick to erase with a signature on some stupid divorce papers. I'd even signed the divorce papers to threaten her, to show her I don't give a damn so she could come back and apologise.

I'm quite sure she knew I couldn't keep it in– the lust. She's always tired anytime she comes back from work, leaving me little to no chance to satisfy my cravings.

I thought she'd known that men are polygamous in nature and I've just tried to keep it in for decades. She pushed me over the edge.

And now she’s everywhere—glowing, laughing, standing beside that suspicious man like she belongs there. Like he knows her. Like he’s earned what I spent years building.

He hasn’t.

He doesn’t know how she takes her tea when she’s tired, or how she hums to herself when she thinks no one’s listening. He didn’t watch her give birth to our son. He didn’t fight with her and make up with her and fight again, until she broke from trying to hold us together.

No one knows her like I do.

I could’ve been better. I would’ve been better. If she’d just waited a little longer. If she hadn’t given up on me.

So now, I want what I lost.

I wanted mine.

I’d take the job she offered. Hell, I’d work twice as hard. Climb higher than she ever did and prove I wasn’t the man who watched his wife succeed while he rotted. I’d fix it. All of it.

Maybe—

The car stalled, jerking me out of my thoughts.

I didn’t even realize I was in traffic until the honking started.

I frowned. “What the hell—?”

Then came the cold.

Not the kind that brushes over skin. No, this was bone-deep. Sudden. Like the air had been sucked out of the world and replaced with something hollow. Like the windows were gone and something old had slipped inside.

The steering wheel slipped from under my hands, my eyes widening as I felt a gust of wind on my skin.

I blinked.

No sound.

No movement.

Just stillness.

And then… nothing.

Not even thoughts.

It's like I'm floating.

Weightless, like I wasn’t sitting in a car anymore. Like I wasn’t in traffic, or on Earth. Just hovering in some vast, invisible space that stretched beyond time.

But I hadn’t blacked out. Not completely. I could still feel the grain of the leather seat under my fingertips. The cool press of the wheel where my head had fallen against it. The subtle hum of something I can't quite point out.

I couldn’t move.

Couldn’t breathe.

But I could feel.

And that was somehow worse.

The city outside my windshield looked the same, but I wasn’t in it anymore. I was somewhere in between. Suspended. Trapped.

And all I could think was—

What the fuck!?

Something dark and wrong brushed against the edge of my consciousness. 

And for the first time since six months ago, I was afraid. 

Then, everything went black. I couldn't feel or hear anymore. I felt stressed, tired, and odd.

Minutes turned to hours. And I don't know how long it has been. But when I could finally feel again, it was pain.

Pure blinding pain.

A gasp tore through my throat as my hand latched to my chest, my eyes snapping open, all my senses coming to life with it.

Honkings blared in the air while I clutched my chest, pain permeating my senses.

What just happened? 

What. The. Hell?

I glanced up at the sound of slamming against my window just to find a lady corp in road safety uniform.

My mouth parted, but I couldn't find my word.

I inhaled deeply and rolled the window down.

“Are you okay?” The corp asked. “You've been here for over two hours. We had to urge the cars to switch lanes and we are almost a few minutes away from getting you out of the car and getting the car towed.”

Shit.

“I'm so sorry.” I said with a smile. “Just… kinda spaced out.”

I cringe inwardly. Spaced out for over two hours. 

Her eyes searched my face for a few seconds before she stepped back. “You should visit the nearest hospital. You look sick. And you should always take the bus. Driving is not for you.”

The smile didn't drop from my face as I pressed the accelerator and zoomed away. I didn't bother going back to Thea's place, because I really need to process what just happened.

After a few minutes of driving towards home, I stopped by a nearby park that's just twenty minutes away from the home I once shared with her. 

I used to come here with Thea when we just had Finn. 

She’d sit on the grass with him curled against her chest, laughing at nothing while I took photos like some proud idiot. We used to talk about schools, picnics, and second babies. The kind of future that felt solid.

Now, everything just felt... thin. Like if I reached out, it would tear.

I rubbed my eyes and stepped out of the car. I walked toward that bench we were sitting on while we threw stones in the pond and leaned back on the bench, letting the cool night air fill my lungs.

The pain in my chest had dulled, but everything still felt off. My skin still didn’t feel right. My thoughts were scattered. And that cold... that unnatural, crawling cold hadn’t really left me.

I closed my eyes, trying to think in a familiar place.

“You don’t look so good, Sebastian.”

The voice cut through the quiet like a blade.

My eyes snapped open, landing on him.

Ezra… Harrington.