Chapter 74 The girl who came back

Chapter 74 The girl who came back

Sera's Pov

Caden was the first one to find his voice.

"Say that again," he said.

Brielle didn't flinch. "You heard me."

"I want to make sure I heard you correctly," he said. "Because what I heard sounds like you walked into a camp full of people who have every reason to put you in the ground and made a demand."

"I made an offer," she said.

Damien stepped forward. “Let me be very clear about your situation. You followed two people out of enemy territory, which means you were either inside that operation or close enough to it that you know exactly how it works." He tilted his head slightly. "Either way, you are not walking out of this camp tonight. Whether you talk or not is entirely your choice. But you are staying regardless."

Brielle's eyes flicked to him. "That wasn't the deal—"

"You don't have a deal," Damien said. "You have our attention. That's significantly less than you think it is."

"Terry." Maera's voice came from behind me, flat and final. "Take her to the east hold. Don't leave her alone and don't let her near anything she can use."

"Don't touch me—" Brielle started.

"Touch her, force her to that place if possible," Maera said simply.

Brielle looked around the room one more time, and her eyes landed on me for exactly three seconds before she let them pull her away.

There was something in that look. It didn't look like fear or defeat. Like she knew something I didn't and was already deciding when to use it.

I couldn't sleep. I snuck out to go see her.
I didn't tell anyone, I didn't ask permission. I walked the east tunnel alone while the camp was still mostly quiet and I stopped in front of the hold door and I looked at the guard stationed outside.

"Give me ten minutes," I said.

"Maera said no one should be allowed in.”

"I know what Maera said. Just give me ten minutes. You can stand right outside the door."

He looked at me for a moment. Then he stepped aside.

I pushed the door open. Brielle was sitting on the floor with her back against the far wall and her knees pulled up, and she looked up when I walked in with absolutely no surprise on her face. Like she'd been waiting. Like she'd known I'd come before I knew it myself.

"Took you longer than I expected," she said.

I let the door close behind me. "I needed to sleep first."

"Did you?"

"No," I admitted. "But I needed you to think I did."

“That's not the girl I pushed off a bridge."

I crossed the room and stood over her and looked down at her and felt absolutely nothing warm in my chest.

"I knew," Brielle said. "Before you say whatever you came here to say, I want you to know that….I knew it.”

"Knew what?"

"That you didn't die." She held my gaze steadily. "At least not right away. But something felt wrong about it. The whole story felt wrong. People like Selene Ashford don't just disappear quietly. And then Sera Moon transferred in and the whole school went strange and Caden's wolf started losing its mind and I watched you for weeks before I was certain."

I said nothing. I just let her ramble and speak.

"Your eyes," she said. "That's what gave you away. The color was different but the way you used them was the same. The way you looked at things like you were memorizing them in case they got taken from you." She tilted her head. "You always did that. Even before you died. Like you were waiting for the world to take back anything good it gave you."

“Hold on,” I said quietly. "Don't analyze me like you know me."

"I do know you," she said. "That's the part that bothers you."

"What bothers me is that you watched me drown. You stood on that bridge and you watched me go under and you walked away. That's what bothers me, Brielle."

She didn't look away. "Yes."

"That's all you have? Yes?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me how you slept," I said. "After, I want to know if it cost you anything at all or if you went home and had dinner and went to bed and woke up the next morning completely fine."

Her jaw tightened. The first crack in the surface.

"I want to know," I continued, "because I spent months underwater in my own head, rebuilding everything from nothing, and I need to understand what kind of person does what you did and just….continues."

"The kind of person who was terrified," she said. And for the first time since I walked in, the performance slipped. "I was terrified of you. Of the bond it shared with Caden. Of what it meant for everything I had built. And terrified people do terrible things."

"Fear doesn't get to be an excuse for murder."

"It wasn't!"

"It was murder," I said. "Call it what it was. You pushed me off a bridge into freezing water and you left. That is murder, Brielle. That is cold blooded murder at the very least and you know it."

She looked at the floor.

"And the thing is," I said, "you didn't just try to kill me. You took something from me that I can never get back. The version of me that existed before that bridge, she was scared and powerless and beaten down, but she was me. She was real. And you decided she didn't deserve to keep existing." I crouched down so we were level. Eye to eye. "So when you sit there and tell me you knew I came back, I need you to understand something."

Brielle looked at me with horror plastered on her face.

"I'm not back for Caden, I'm not back for revenge. I came back because I chose to. Because the Moon Goddess gave me a choice and I said yes because I refused to let you be the last thing that happened to me." I held her gaze and didn't let go. "You don't get to be my ending, Brielle. You never did."

“You can't hurt me, I hold valuable information, I know what's coming for you,” Brielle let out.

"Then tell us."

"I told you my terms."

"And I told you those terms don't exist," I muttered evenly, "Caden is not a bargaining chip. He is not yours to claim or mine to hand over. So whatever fantasy you walked in here carrying, let it go."

"You think I want him back?" she said. And something genuine finally broke through her face. "I want him to look at me the way he looks at you. That's all I ever wanted. I wanted to be the one he chose and instead I was the one he settled for because you weren't there. Do you have any idea what that feels like? Being someone's second choice disguised as first?"

I looked at her for a long moment.

"Yes," I stood back up. "I know exactly what that feels like. Because that's what you made me. The one who didn't even make the list. The difference is I didn't push you off a bridge for it."

She flinched, turning her head to the side.

"You're going to tell us everything you know, and not for a deal. Because the alternative is being handed over to people who have far less patience than I do, and you are smart enough to understand which option keeps you breathing longer." I walked to the door. Put my hand on the frame. "You're a murderer, Brielle. And I don't know yet what justice looks like for you. But I promise you this….. it's coming. Whatever you do next, however much you cooperate, that part doesn't change."

"Selene."

My name. My real name. The one she'd used to degrade me for years.

I stopped but didn't turn around.

“You really did come back different," she said. And there was no mockery in it this time. “I didn't think that was possible. People like you don't come back."

I opened the door.

"People like me, are the only ones who do.” Before I shut the door, I turned to look at her one last time. “Fyi my name is Sera Moon.” Then I slammed the door and I walked out.

And in the tunnel, three steps from the door, I stopped.

Because Tobias was standing there with a worried expression.

"What happened?" I said.

"The marks on Wren, changed again overnight."

"How did it happen?" My stomach dropped.

"I don't know," He held my gaze. "All I do know, is that it's spreading to her face, Sera. We're out of time.”