The words sat on my tongue like something---
rotten.
Bitter.
Poisonous.
But I couldn't hold them in any longer.
My breath came fast, uneven, my fingers curling against the blanket, gripping it like it was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
And then—
"I regret saving you that night."
Silence.
The kind that crushed the air out of my lungs, heavy and suffocating.
But I wasn't done.
I swallowed, my throat burning. "If that man had killed you instead—Vee would still be alive."
There.
I said it.
It was ugly. It was cruel. But it was true.
And he—
He didn't even flinch.
Just stared at me, that unreadable look carved into his features like stone.
Like he had already known. Like he had been waiting for me to say it.
"Is that what you think?" he asked quietly.
I exhaled sharply. "It's what I know."
His gaze didn't waver. "And yet, you pulled me out of the fire."
My stomach twisted.
I had.I had pulled him out of the dark, out of the blood, out of whatever hell he had been drowning in—
And for what?
So he could keep doing this?
So more people could die?
I gritted my teeth. "I didn't know what you were then."
"And now you do?"
The words sent something cold down my spine.
Because that was the worst part.
I did.
I knew exactly what he was.
And yet—
I was still here.
Still talking to him.
Still breathing the same air.
"Step off a ledge," he murmured, watching me carefully, "and gravity pulls you down. It's not personal." Something in me snapped.
"Stop it," I hissed. His expression didn't change. "You think this is just physics? That the things you've done—the people you've hurt are just some unchangeable force of nature?" My voice shook. "It's not gravity. It's you."
He was quiet for a long time. Before he asked what I had been asking myself since I woke up.
"Then why are you still here?"
I inhaled sharply
I didn't have an answer.