Chapter 18- Five Minutes to Midnight

The hardest part of a lie isn’t telling it.

It’s surviving the moment someone starts to believe the truth instead.

---

Sonia sat on the windowsill in the common room, knees pulled to her chest, staring out at the campus like the answers were hiding in the dark corners between lamplight and ivy.

Her Gala speech was now less than a week away, and Daxton’s golden stage was already being built, an altar dressed in glass and tradition.

And she was the sacrifice.

Every word written for that speech felt like a coffin being nailed shut.

Legacy.

Loss.

Leadership.

The kind of themes Daxton loved. The kind it used to bury truths in silk and sparkle.

But none of it meant anything if they called her name.

If they called Sonia Vale.

She reached into her hoodie pocket and pulled out the copy of the leaked article.

She hadn’t meant to keep it, but some bruises deserved to be stared at until they healed.

The side-by-side of her and Silas still made her chest twist. Maybe not because it was wrong.

But because the headline was starting to feel right.

She didn’t look like Silas anymore.

She didn’t move like him, laugh like him, disappear like him.

And that scared her more than exposure.

It made her wonder if this place hadn’t just threatened to erase her.

Maybe it had already started.

---

At 11:35 PM — The Greenhouse Roof

Eric found her there. Not by accident.

She didn’t hear him at first.

The greenhouse’s glass dome gave off a quiet hum, like the earth was trying to speak back to the stars. But when he climbed up beside her, dropping onto the patch of warm stone next to her boots, she didn’t flinch.

Just glanced over.

“Thought you’d stopped chasing ghosts,” she said.

Eric didn’t smile.

“Ghosts don’t bleed,” he said. “You do.”

She looked away. “Maybe I’m both.”

He studied her.

Sonia was wearing Silas’s hoodie again, sleeves pushed up, a smudge of ink on her thumb like always.

But there was something different in her tonight, something collapsed and trying not to show it.

“They’re going to say my name on stage,” she said after a beat. “And it won’t matter if I stop them. The second they say ‘Sonia,’ it’s over.”

Eric was silent for a moment.

Then: “You don’t have to go.”

“I do.”

“You could run.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “Where? Off the rooftop? Into the Cartel’s arms? Back to my father?”

Her voice cracked on the last word. She hated that it did.

Eric didn’t respond with logic. Or some sleek Daxton-born plan.

He just leaned forward and said, quietly, “Then don’t face it alone.”

She turned her head sharply. “What do you mean?”

He took a breath. The kind you take before saying something that can’t be unsaid.

“I’ve seen the way you break. I’ve seen the way you fight. I’ve seen you lying to everyone but yourself. And I don’t care if you’re Sonia or Silas or some storm pretending to be human.”

She blinked.

“I just care that you’re still standing.”

The silence after that wasn’t awkward.

It was heavy.

Soft.

Waiting.

Sonia’s pulse ticked like it was counting down again.

“You shouldn’t,” she said finally. “Care.”

“I know.” He tilted his head. “But I do anyway.”

Then he reached out and brushed her hand with his.

It wasn’t a full touch. Not yet.

But it was enough.

Enough to make her exhale in a way she hadn’t in days.

“I’m scared,” she admitted.

“I’m not.” He smiled a little. “You’re the scariest person I know.”

She laughed once real and raw.

And then she kissed him.

It wasn’t perfect.

It wasn’t practiced or poetic or neatly wrapped in some fireworks-laced Daxton moment.

It was messy.

A little desperate.

A little shaky.

But real.

And it anchored her.

When they pulled apart, she stayed close, forehead resting against his.

Eric’s hand was on her jaw now, thumb grazing just below her ear.

“You’re going to walk onto that stage,” he whispered, “and whatever name they call… I’ll be there. Even if it all burns.”

She wanted to say thank you.

She wanted to say I don’t deserve you.

She wanted to say I’m not done being afraid.

But all she said was, “Don’t blink.”

He smirked. “Wouldn’t dare.”

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12:04 AM — Her Room

Sonia stood in front of the mirror again, looking at herself—not Silas’s hoodie, not the blazer, not the performance.

Just her.

The girl with a war under her skin and no clean ending in sight.

She opened the drawer beside her bed and pulled out the Gala card. The stage pass. The ticket to the lie.

She set it down next to the Cartel’s envelope.

Then added the article.

Then Silas’s glasses.

Piece by piece, she was laying down the story.

And deciding which one she was going to finish writing.

Five minutes to midnight.

And tomorrow, she’d begin her own kind of war.