Chapter 12

Dual POV: Ripley & Royal

"Rilla, please, help me!"

The scream never fades. It stays lodged in the back of my throat, tasting like copper and cold rain. For six years, the same sequence has played behind my eyelids every time I blink. Rowena, my little sister, reaching out with trembling hands. Rowena, begging the one person she trusted to save her.

Then the sound of the gun. Three sharp cracks that tore the night apart.

I watched Rowena collapse like a broken doll. She didn't even have time to look surprised. Then Rosamund screamed, a raw, jagged sound that cut through the ringing in my ears, only for another bullet to silences her too.

I didn't give a damn about Rosamund. She was just another casualty. But Rowena was my blood. She was the one person I swore to keep safe, the girl I promised to protect from every monster in the dark. I never realized the monster was already sitting at our dinner table, laughing at our jokes.

That bitch killed her in cold blood.

What burns more than the hatred is the shame. I remember the way my heart used to hammer against my ribs when she walked into a room. I liked her. I actually thought she was the one. From the very first moment I saw her, I was finished.

Rowena brought her home one afternoon, introducing her as a new friend. Rilla was different from the girls who usually hung around the pack house. She didn't preen or posture for the attention of an Alpha. She was quiet, almost painfully shy, always lingering in the shadows of the hallway. She only spoke when someone addressed her directly.

Rowena was a whirlwind of energy, a non stop talker who needed someone to listen. I figured she’d finally found a captive audience. But I saw something else. I saw a girl who seemed to be hiding from the world, and for some reason, I wanted to be the one she hid with.

I wasn't the type to get attached. Women were a distraction, something to be used and forgotten once the itch was scratched. But Rilla made me want to stay. I started tracking Rowena’s schedule, making sure I was home whenever she mentioned Rilla was coming over.

We spent hours playing mindless video games. Robbie would usually crash the party, making stupid jokes, but I didn't care. Those afternoons felt like a sanctuary. I even started looking at the books she left lying around. I hated reading, especially the sappy romance novels she carried, but I bought copies of them anyway. I plowed through those cringy pages just to see the world through her eyes.

I learned that she wanted a fairy tale. She wanted to be loved. I sat there in the dark, staring at those paperbacks, thinking I could give that to her. I thought we could build something. A family. A future.

The fantasy didn't just die; it was executed. It ended the moment the surveillance footage landed on my desk. I watched the girl I loved, the "shy" girl who wouldn't look me in the eye, performing for our enemies. She wasn't just with them. She belonged to them.

She used Rowena to get to Philip. She was a Trojan horse in a floral sundress. She didn't just kill my sister; she handed over our pack’s blueprints, our patrol routes, our weaknesses.

When the attack came, I couldn't even hunt her down. I had to stay with Philip. I had to watch our world burn. The air was thick with the smell of charred wood and rotting meat. By the time the sun rose, the Alpha and Luna were dead. Our friends were piles of ash. The most powerful pack in the region was reduced to a graveyard.

All because of her.

We don't have feelings anymore. The grieving versions of ourselves died that night. What’s left are just hollowed-out shells fueled by a need for violence. We crave blood because it’s the only thing that feels warm.

A loud honk from the car behind me jerked my hands back to the present. My knuckles were white against the steering wheel. I forced my grip to loosen, breathing through the tension as I pulled toward Robin’s bar. Robbie and Rory were already inside, probably halfway through a bottle.

"I need a drink," I muttered to the empty car. "And a distraction. Anything to scrub the memory of her out of my head."

"Is she going to wake up?" I asked, my voice sounding flat even to my own ears.

Romilly didn't look up. He was busy adjusting the oxygen levels, his movements precise and clinical. With the help of the hospital staff, we had moved Rilla into the guest room of the main house. It was a sterile, cold space. No woman had set foot in this house for years, not even to clean. Now, she was here, and the air felt heavy with her presence.

I wasn't sure if we were actually caring for her or just preserving her for later torments.

Romilly finally turned, his eyes hard behind his glasses. "She’ll live, Royal. But only if you animals stay away from her. Her ribs are like eggshells right now. If any of you decide to take your frustrations out on her tonight, you might as well start digging the hole in the backyard."

I flinched at the bluntness. "We need her for information. Philip won't let her die yet."

"At least until she talks, right?" Romilly snapped, packing his medical bag with a series of sharp metallic clicks. "Just remember, she’s a human being, not a punching bag."

"Think about what she did, Romilly," I countered, my voice rising. "Think about what Ripley lost. What Robbie saw. You can’t just ignore the blood on her hands because she looks pathetic in a hospital bed."

Romilly paused at the door, his hand on the frame. He looked back at Rilla’s still form, then at me. "Her life hasn't been a walk in the park either, Royal. When you have a moment, actually look at her. Not just the bruises you gave her, but the ones she already had. Then tell me who the monster is."

He left without another word, his staff trailing behind him like a funeral procession.

The room fell into a suffocating silence, broken only by the rhythmic hum of the monitor. I walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. Against my better judgment, my hand drifted toward her face. I wanted to see if her skin was as cold as it looked.

I stopped an inch away. My fingers shook.

I pulled back, standing up so fast the chair creaked. I couldn't do this. I couldn't let myself feel a flicker of the old warmth. That Rilla was a lie. The girl I liked was a ghost, a character played by an actress who had scripted our destruction.

She was a thorn buried so deep in my chest that the skin had grown over it. Pulling it out would leave a hole I couldn't fill, but leaving it in was a slow, stinging poison.

"Why did you do it?" I whispered to the quiet room.