Her arms wrapped around her leg, her whole body curled up like a wounded animal, lips trembling, face white as bone.
She was crying.
Not screaming. Not sobbing.
Just leaking tears like her soul was bleeding through her eyes.
Mia fell to her knees beside her. “Miss Riley?! What happened?! What’s wrong?!”
Riley couldn’t answer.
She was shaking, mumbling incoherently, her voice low and broken: “I’m sorry… don’t hit me… I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry…”
Over and over.
Her voice was small.
Terrified.
Like she wasn’t even here anymore.
Like her mind had gone somewhere darker. Farther.
I stood frozen.
Heart pounding.
No-slamming.
“What… what are you saying?” I murmured.
She looked up at me, her eyes glassy and lost.
“I’m sorry… please don’t hit me again…”
Mia pushed me aside with strength I didn’t know she had, her fingers fumbling to roll up Riley’s pant leg.
And then I saw it.
Her leg.
It was ruined.
Scarred. Crooked. Twisted in ways no bone should ever be. The skin bore every memory it never wanted to keep-red, purple, bruised, raw, old.
There were scars that hadn’t faded.
Wounds that had never healed.
I stared.
And stared.
And stared.
“…What the hell happened to her?” I whispered.
She was fine five years ago.
When they dragged her away in handcuffs, she was whole.
Now?
Now she was… this.
Mia’s voice trembled. “She was in prison. You think it was a safe place for a girl like her? An Omega?”
My throat tightened.
My heart cracked open.
And I realized-I had never once asked.
Never once wondered.
What happened to my sister after I let them take her away.
She wasn’t even twenty.
And I handed her over like a problem to be erased.
I lunged forward and scooped her up.
She was so light.
Too light.
Like someone who’d gone hungry for far too long.
I didn’t stop to think. Just ran-through the courtyard, into the house.
But the second I reached the main hall…
I froze.
I didn’t even know where her room was.
I’d lived here all my life.
And I didn’t know where my sister slept.
“Mia,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Where’s her room?”
She hesitated, then pointed down the servants’ corridor.
“This way, Young Master.”
I followed.
The hallway was narrow. Damp.
It smelled like dust and mildew.
The deeper we went, the harder it became to breathe.
And then Mia opened the door.
The smell hit me first.
Then the sight.
A room the size of a closet. Stained walls. No windows. A single broken fan in the corner. A fold-up cot pressed against the wall, surrounded by piles of junk.
I stared.
Stared like the world had ended.
“She… she lives here?” I choked.
Third Person’s POV
The room was barely a room at all.
Cramped. Damp. Mold clung to the walls like parasites. A single folding cot occupied the far corner, surrounded by a scatter of worn clothes and lifeless daily necessities. The sour scent of mildew hung in the air, thick and suffocating. Cobwebs draped the ceiling like a burial veil.
Kael stood at the doorway, fists clenched at his sides.
His heart pounded with a fury he didn’t quite understand-not yet. Not fully.
“Mia,” he growled, his voice tight and low, “what the hell is this? Who let her live in a place like this? She’s my sister!”
Mia flinched, clearly startled by his sudden outburst. “Young Master… it was you who told us to arrange her stay here. Don’t you remember?”
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