Chapter 93 Choice As Healing
I didn’t want to get out of bed that morning. Not because I was physically sore, though the bruises from training and the marks from my own claws throbbed, but because my mind felt like it had been folded in on itself and left there to rot. The memories of my father’s labs, the screams, the metal, the smell of burned flesh, the cold of the operating tables, they lingered. Sharp, relentless. Every time I closed my eyes, the nightmares clawed their way back, leaving me breathless, shaking, and exhausted.
Yet, the knock at my door was insistent, deliberate. One I couldn’t ignore.
“Lyra,” Dr. Voss said softly, her voice carrying the quiet authority that always made my stomach twist in a way I didn’t like. “Time for our session.”
I groaned. “I’m not ready,” I mumbled, burying my face further into the pillow.
Her voice was gentle but firm, like a hand gripping mine through a storm. “You’re always ready. You just don’t know it yet.”
I sat up reluctantly, letting the blankets fall from my shoulders. Her office had changed. She insisted today that we meet on the balcony. The sunlight poured in, the city sprawling below, the breeze carrying a mixture of scent, flowers from the terrace, the faint tang of the air conditioning units from the buildings beyond, the distant hum of traffic. It should have been calming. Instead, it made me acutely aware of my vulnerability. Out here, I had no walls to hide behind, no safe cocoon of darkness.
Dr. Voss gestured to a chair across from her. I hesitated, then sat, arms wrapped around my knees.
“Lyra,” she began, leaning forward, her voice low and measured. “We’re going to talk about a future you haven’t faced yet.”
I frowned. “What… future?”
“The one where you meet your sister. And your mother,” she said plainly, as if speaking the words aloud made them less dangerous.
I flinched, my fingers digging into the fabric of my jeans. My stomach tightened. I felt a wave of nausea rise in my chest. My sister. My mother. Faces I had no memory of, lives that had been stolen from me before I even had a chance to know them. And now, all of it was closing in.
“I can’t,” I said softly, almost to myself. “I can’t. Not yet. I… I don’t even know what I’ll feel. What if my mother hates me? What if she doesn’t even want to see me? What if… what if it’s all worse than I imagine?”
Dr. Voss didn’t flinch. Didn’t recoil from my fear. She just watched me, her brown eyes steady, patient, unflinching.
“You’re afraid,” she said, not as a question but as a statement. “Good. Fear is honest. Fear keeps you alive. But you need to understand something, meeting them doesn’t have to define you. You can approach it on your terms.”
I shook my head. “But… I don’t know if I even have terms anymore. My mind… It’s been… tampered with. Torn apart. My father, the labs… the pain. How do I even know what’s mine? What’s real? What’s left?”
Dr. Voss leaned back slightly, letting the sun catch the edges of her hair. “You’re not broken, Lyra.”
The words hit me like a cold wind. “I’m… not?”
“No. You were interrupted,” she said gently, pausing so the words could sink in. “Your life was never allowed to unfold naturally. Your experiences, your pain, your survival, it’s been forcibly redirected by someone else. That doesn’t make you broken. That makes you… unfinished. Interrupted. But there’s a difference, Lyra. You can finish yourself. You can reclaim who you were meant to be.”
I swallowed, my throat tight. The lump there was bigger than anything I’d felt in months. “But what if… what if my mother doesn’t want me? After everything… after my father… after all the suffering. What if she hates me for existing?”
Dr. Voss shook her head slowly. “You’re giving her far too much power over your feelings.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “Easy for you to say. You weren’t locked in a cage, experimented on, turned into something… something else. You didn’t have to fight your own mind for every shred of sanity.”
“No,” she admitted. “I didn’t. But I’ve seen what happens when people refuse to step forward, when they let fear decide for them. They stagnate. They lose themselves.”
I looked away, focusing on the city below, the way the sunlight glinted off the rooftops. My beast stirred within me, coiled, restless. I could feel it whispering, eager to protect, eager to attack, eager to take control. I had spent years hiding from it. Now, I realized, hiding wouldn’t save me. Hiding from the truth wouldn’t save me either.
Dr. Voss’s voice broke through my spiraling thoughts. “Healing is a choice, Lyra. Choosing to face what frightens you. Choosing to reclaim your life. Choosing to step into the unknown even when your instincts scream to flee. You can do it. You already have, in ways you don’t even recognize.”
I exhaled shakily, closing my eyes. The warmth of the sun on my face, the gentle breeze, and her presence, it grounded me, but didn’t erase the fear. “And if I fail? If I meet them and… I’m not enough? If I can’t fix what’s broken?”
“You’re not broken,” she said again, repeating the words with care. “And no one expects you to fix anything. Not yet. You simply exist. You survive. And that, in itself, is more than most can manage. Your mother… your sister… they don’t define you. You do.”
I opened my eyes, staring at the horizon, the city bathed in light. I wanted to believe her, I wanted to cling to it like a lifeline, but the knot of fear in my chest was stubborn. The truth was terrifying. My mother, if she even wanted me, could reject me. My sister could be trapped, or changed, or worse. And yet, I knew one thing, running wasn’t an option anymore. I had to face it. I had to face them.
Dr. Voss’s hand rested lightly on mine, just for a second, and I felt the calm she radiated seep into me. “You’re not alone, Lyra. And you never will be. But the choice, as always, is yours.”
I nodded slowly, the weight in my chest easing just a fraction. “I’m… afraid,” I admitted, voice small.
“And you should be,” she said softly. “Fear keeps you sharp. It keeps you aware. But it will not define you unless you let it. You’ve survived horrors that would break others. You will face this, too. And you will not be interrupted again, Lyra. You will choose how your story continues.”
I let the words sink in, letting the sunlight warm my skin, the wind tug at my hair. I was still afraid. I always would be. But maybe… maybe fear didn’t have to stop me.
And maybe… maybe I could face my mother.