Chapter 17

• Leila
• I sat in front of the mirror, staring at myself in a daze. The glass threw back a face I barely recognized - pale, hollowed out, like a mask stitched from someone else's skin. My hands rested limp in my lap, heavy, useless. This life felt different, unmoored from the one I'd known before. Where once I'd moved with purpose, now every step dragged, every breath tasted of ash. My body betrayed me, lazy and weak, a shell that mocked the strength I'd lost. I pressed a finger to the mirror, half-expecting it to ripple like water, but it stayed cold and solid, trapping me in its truth.
• What gnawed at me more, though, was the disgust festering in my chest for Lucas. It had bloomed slow and vicious, fed by memories I couldn't shake—the night of the full moon, his eyes wild with anger and jealousy, his hands tearing at my clothes like I was meat to be carved. That night, he'd stripped me bare in more ways than one, leaving me raw and humiliated under the silver light. And now? Now he slunk home every night, a shadow creeping into my space when he'd ignored me for years in what I could only call a previous life. The shift made no sense. His sudden attention was a blade pressed to my throat—too close, too sharp, too late. I needed out. I needed to claw my way free before he smothered me entirely.