Chapter 29- The Things We Don’t Say

The air tasted different now.

Not sweeter. Not cleaner. Just… different. Like the world had exhaled, but Sonia hadn’t caught up to the breath.

She walked the garden path in slow, steady steps, gravel crunching under her shoes. There were no voices echoing through the halls. No threats under doorways. Just the soft rustle of trees, and the way moonlight dappled against the ivy-wrapped stone.

She should have felt victorious.

Instead, she felt like she was waiting for someone to tug the rug from beneath her again.

It didn’t help that she kept catching glimpses of her own reflection in dark windows—short hair, sharp shoulders, the ghost of a boy who never quite fit his skin. But now, even in her own face, she wasn’t sure who she was looking at.

Not Silas.

Not just Sonia either.

Maybe both.

Maybe neither.

She settled onto the ledge behind the east wing, the one with the carved lion heads and the chipped stone. Her blazer sat folded beside her, and she didn’t wear it tonight. She didn’t need to.

The stars blinked lazily overhead. For a second, the world felt like it was waiting too.

A rustle.

She didn’t turn. She already knew.

Eric.

He walked toward her slowly, hands in his pockets like he didn’t want to spook her. Like she was the deer and he was the hunter trying not to make it worse.

He sat down beside her without a word, and the silence that bloomed between them wasn’t awkward. It was familiar.

“You always find me,” she said after a while.

“I think you want to be found,” he replied, not looking at her. “Even if you don’t admit it.”

She let the words hang there.

“Did you mean what you said?” she asked.

Eric glanced sideways. “Which part?”

“That you still feel it. That you always did.”

His jaw flexed. “Yeah. I meant it.”

Sonia exhaled slowly, feeling like her heart had been unknotted thread by thread. “You didn’t fall for him,” she murmured. “You fell for the way I wore him.”

“No,” Eric said, and his voice was gentler now, more sure. “I fell for the way you didn’t let being him destroy you.”

She turned to look at him, the moonlight catching in her eyes like silver. “I kept thinking I had to become invincible to survive this place. That if I let even one piece of softness show, I’d fall apart.”

“You didn’t fall apart,” he said. “You lit the place up.”

Sonia wanted to laugh, but all that came out was a quiet hum of disbelief.

“I don’t know how to stop fighting,” she admitted.

Eric reached over and slid his hand into hers. “You don’t have to stop. But you don’t have to fight alone anymore, either.”

Her fingers tightened in his. That’s all she let herself do. Tighten. Because if she let go of the control she’d gripped so tightly for so long, she might break open in a way that couldn’t be patched back together.

But she wanted to.

He was looking at her again, and this time, she didn’t look away.

“I used to think wanting someone was a weakness,” she whispered.

Eric’s voice was hoarse now. “Then I hope you never stop being weak for me.”

And just like that, she kissed him again.

Not like before. This time she leaned in first.

This time she didn’t overthink.

His hand came up to the back of her neck, steady, firm, reverent. She let her fingers slip beneath his collar, and for a moment, they weren’t prodigies or suspects or survivors. They were just two people in the night who hadn’t known how much they needed softness until it was offered without question.

He kissed her like he was learning the taste of her grief.

She kissed him like he was the one thing that hadn’t asked her to be stronger than she was.

When they pulled back, their breaths were uneven. Her forehead rested against his, and he smiled, slow and crooked.

“I knew there was more under that blazer,” he whispered.

She smiled too, eyes closed. “And you still want it?”

He brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “I want you.”

But the moment didn’t last.

Because the wind shifted—and it carried something with it.

A sound. A voice.

Low. Familiar.

Her head snapped up, eyes wide.

Eric followed her gaze, confused. “What is it?”

Then she was on her feet, blood running cold.

There, just beyond the fountain stood a figure.

A boy. Her height. Her face.

Silas.

He wasn’t a ghost.

He wasn’t a memory.

He was here.

Alive.

Her knees almost gave out, but she didn’t blink. Couldn’t.

“Silas…” she breathed.

Eric stood, stunned, watching as the figure stepped forward from the shadows.

The world shrank to a pinpoint.

Sonia took a step toward him. “How...?”

But her brother only raised one hand, his voice low. “Not now. They’re watching.”

“Who?” she asked, breath catching.

Silas glanced over his shoulder. “The Cartel’s not gone. You lit the match. But they’ve had decades to build their walls.”

Sonia looked to Eric, then back to her brother. “Where were you?”

“Trying to make sure you never had to come here.” His voice cracked. “But I guess you’re as stupid as me.”

She choked a laugh, eyes burning.

“I missed you,” she whispered.

Silas’s jaw clenched. “I wasn’t ready to come back. But I saw the footage. I saw what you did. You lit a fire.”

“And now?”

“Now,” he said, “we burn the rest of them down.”

And for the first time in months, Sonia Vale felt like a twin again.

A pair.

Two halves of a whole story that wasn’t finished.

But the next page?

Wouldn’t be written in whispers anymore.

It would be a war cry.

And she wouldn’t be alone.