Chapter 26 The Past
Aiyana's P.O.V
The house was too quiet.
Not gentle quiet, not the peaceful hush of morning or the hush right before sleep. This silence felt heavy. As if it carried dust and unspoken dread. As if even the walls were holding their breath.
I sat in my room, Jerome’s jacket crumpled in my arms, clutched like a lifeline I was terrified to loosen. His scent lingered in the fabric musk, steel, cedarwood and a cinnamon . It should’ve been comfort. Instead it trembled like a reminder.
He left early again.
No kiss, no word, no lingering touch. Just the shift of weight on the mattress, the soft retreat of footsteps, and the cold left behind. My body always woke with him — trauma trained me too well. You didn’t survive men like Donga by sleeping deeply. You survived by listening.
I pressed my face into the jacket, inhaling.
He was out there somewhere with a blade drawn, jaw set, shoulders tight, fighting shadows and enemies that wanted me dead. Bleeding because of me.
My fault. My presence. My existence.
Jerome was getting hurt because of me.
Jerome was fighting because of me.
Every bruise he returned with… was mine, just painted on him instead.
Three nights ago I saw it clearly — the wound. His entire right arm gashed open, skin shredded by a blade I never saw but could imagine too vividly. He returned before dawn, half-conscious, leaning on Gerald as if gravity itself finally won.
And still, when he saw me, he smiled.
“For you,” he whispered.
As though devotion was painless.
As though love didn’t bleed.
I lay his jacket across my knees, fingers tight, knuckles white. The thought that had been stalking me — slow, venomous, patient — finally sharpened into something shaped like decision.
What if I left?
What if the only way to keep Jerome alive… was to step out of his life?
It was an ugly thought. A cowardly one. But it pulsed like truth.
If I disappear, he won’t have to fight so much.
If I’m gone, his enemies lose reason to come.
If I walk away, maybe — just maybe — he gets to live instead of survive.
My heart cracked, but logic was louder.
He deserves peace.
And peace will never exist with me in his house.
I rose, slow, and stood by the window. Guards lined the perimeter — trained, armed, alert. Not because Jerome needed protection.
Because I did.
Jerome wasn’t the hunted.
I was.
And he chose to stand between me and the wolves.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until his blood stained him more than mine ever stained me.
I closed my eyes, breathing unsteady.
I was the reason.
The trigger.
The fuse.
He was fire, always burning, always ready to tear the world in half for me.
And if he kept burning… he would burn out.
Tears slipped hot down my cheeks.
I turned at the sound of the door opening — not loud, not rushed. Controlled.
Gerald.
He stepped into the room like he already knew everything I had been thinking. His eyes dropped to the jacket in my arms, then lifted to my face — taking in the tiredness, the fear, the quiet decision forming like storm behind my ribs.
"Morning, Aiyana," he said.
My voice was paper thin. "Morning."
He closed the door behind him — not like a guard. Like someone preparing for truth.
“You didn’t go to see Jerome off,” he said.
My chest tightened. “I was tired.”
“No you weren’t.”
My pulse spiked.
Gerald stepped closer, slow, steady — giving me time to run if I wanted to. I hated him for understanding that I might.
“You’re thinking of leaving.”
My breath stopped in my throat.
I stared past him, out the window, gripping the jacket like it could stop my heart from breaking open.
“I’m not running,” I whispered.
“Not yet,” he replied softly.
That did it.
The walls I built around the truth cracked. My knees weakened, but I forced myself to stay standing.
“Gerald,” my voice trembled, “he keeps getting hurt because of me. Every battle, every cut, every breath he fights through — it’s all tied to me. I can’t watch him bleed for me forever.”
Gerald didn’t interrupt. He let the confession spill out — ugly, desperate, honest.
“I don’t want the man who saved me to die because of me,” I choked.
Then Gerald did something unexpected.
He knelt.
A man like Gerald kneeling wasn’t small. It meant history. Loyalty. Truth that demanded to be carried, not avoided.
“And what makes you think he wants to live in a world where you don’t exist?” he asked.
I froze — breath shattered, thinking halted.
One tear fell. Then another.
“I’m a burden,” I whispered.
“No.” Gerald shook his head firmly. “You are his purpose. You think you are a weight, but that is only because you doubt you deserve to be held.”
I covered my face with trembling hands.
“I just want him alive.”
“And he wants you,” Gerald said, voice low and certain. “Not a memory of you. Not the ghost you plan to become.”
My heart broke open — messy, exposed.
Gerald stood, eyes never leaving mine.
“You think leaving will save him. But it will shatter him. You would take the one thing keeping him human.”
I swallowed jagged air.
“What do I do then?” I whispered. “If I stay, he keeps fighting.”
Gerald lifted Jerome’s jacket from my hands and draped it around my shoulders — heavy, grounding, warm.
“If you stay weak, yes — he will always bleed for you.”
He met my eyes again.
“But if you become strong, he will fight with you.”
Lightning moved through me.
Fight with him.
Be fire beside him.
Not the reason he falls, the reason he stands.
“You mean… I have to learn?” I whispered.
“No. You have to transform.”
His voice was steady, sure.
“You survived hell already, Aiyana. Now learn to make hell afraid of you.”
He held out his hand.
My fingers trembled.
But I took it.
Not because I was fearless.
Because fear has dictated enough of my life already — and I am tired.
“I won’t run,” I breathed.
He squeezed my hand — acceptance, approval, warning.
“Good. Because if you did,” Gerald said quietly, “Jerome wouldn’t go after you to bring you back.”
My throat tightened.
“He would go after you to die beside you.”
Everything inside me stilled.
Not a fuse.
Not a burden.
Not a hunted thing.
A beginning.
My voice was a whisper, but steady:
"Then teach me."
Gerald nodded, a small smile breaking through the stone of him.
“We start today.”
The future no longer felt like a cliff I was falling from, it felt like ground I could learn to fight on.
Today, I chose to become the weapon beside him.