Novel & Cerita Fractured

Despite having a lot of things that were preventing me from functioning well, I don’t know how I was able to come to the company without any scratches. There are a lot of things in my mind lately. Even though I wanted to talk to my only friend about the situation I’m into, I couldn’t tell her at all. Cassandra had once suffered from a miscarriage and I was there when it happened. It was a pity but more importantly a lot more painful for my friend as she had expected her baby to live. After that incident, I had vowed myself to always buying her whatever she wanted; probably also because of the trauma I sustained from that time.

Because each fracture would be different. Each required its own understanding. The reflection in the glass showed someone no longer trying to maintain perfect alignment

Uneven terrain would require attention to every step. Ribs: two on the left side had taken something. Bruised, not cracked — the distinction mattered enormously because cracked ribs required immobility and I was not going to have the luxury of immobility in this situation, whatever this situation turned out to be. I tested them carefully, breathing in slow, measured increments, and the sharp-edged wrongness that indicates a fracture was not there. Just the deep, consistent ache of tissue that had been compressed beyond its preference. Painful and going to remain painful. I had trained through considerably worse.

Melissa’s POV The fracture did not spread the way I expected. It did not tear the ground open or split the world apart in some dramatic collapse....it branched. Thin lines, like cracks in glass, spread outward beneath our feet—delicate, precise, almost… intentional. That was worse because destruction is chaotic. This was as structured and Failsafe pulsed violently. “Fragmentation pattern confirmed. Divergence exceeding containment thresholds.” Zara took a step back. “Yeah, no. That’s definitely spreading.”

In his time as a True Crime writer, Byron had interviewed many people, many of them disturbed or troubled in some way. In these interviews, he would often run up against what he called The Breakdown, to the point where, due to the pressures of telling him their story a person would hit an unknown well of feelings and just… shut down, usually in a maelstrom of tears. They always recovered but it was at a point that Byron always hated, even dreaded.

CRACK. The three-inch-thick solid oak table shattered down the center, its heavy legs buckling as the wood splintered into jagged fragments, collapsing onto the marble floor in a violent spray of debris. The heavy decanter of Scotch exploded, sending amber liquid and crystal shards cascading across the polished stone.

Then something moved behind the black. It was not the clean return of amber I had seen before. It was a fracture, raw and unstable, as if the man inside were tearing his way through the programming by force. Kael’s body shuddered hard. His grip on my arm flexed, loosened a fraction, then tightened again as the failsafe fought to keep control. A low, broken sound tore out of him half growl, half pain. His free hand slammed into the rock wall beside my head hard enough to send cracks racing through the stone. Blood ran down his arm from the impact.

He pulled his arm back and struck the wall again, and again, and again. Boom! Boom! Boom! The sound of solid stone fracturing echoed alongside the sickening, distinct pop of his own bones breaking. His knuckles split open completely. Thick, dark blood seeped out of his skin, gushing down his hand and splashing heavily onto the floor. Two of his finger bones fractured under the brutal impact, the sharp pain radiating up his arm, but he didn't care. He didn't even flinch. He just kept punching until the entire section of the reinforced stone wall collapsed inward, crumbling into a pile of gray dust and rubble.

A fracture. The truce was signed in blood and secrets. Now, we just had to see who would break first.

The child in Fleur's womb was beaten into a pool of blood by Shane's out-of-control fists. Shane was detained for intentional injury. Though he was later released on bail, his reputation was ruined, and his company was dragged down with him. Business partners canceled their contracts one after another. The stock price plummeted. His former glory vanished overnight. After collapsing from rage, Shane's mother suffered a stroke and was left half-paralyzed for life. Shane sold the house, the car—everything that could be turned into cash. He struggled to pay medical bills and compensate the families whose lives Fleur had destroyed with her rumors.