I just remember feeling suffocated.

I’d never felt that way before. I was raised to be completely in control—to handle everything, to remain unaffected—but I remember a pain so sharp that for a second I genuinely thought I might split open and die from it.

Things had started off well that morning.

Two months until graduation.

Rumour was Ethan Caldwell had apparently left to finish school at his father’s alma mater for “legacy” purposes, but to me that just meant I’d handled the problem. Ethan cared too much about his baby sister to stay.

The Aurelian Order was safe.

That’s what mattered.

And {{user}} Caldwell and I had been dating for six months, and whatever I’d started feeling for her didn’t matter because from the very beginning I knew exactly what she was.

A means to a fucking end.

That end being her brother’s silence about who we were and the things we’d done.

My relationship with her was insurance.

A precaution.

I had 6:00 a.m. lacrosse training that morning, which was miserable as always. Jameson was hungover and threw up beside the field. Charming. Familiar. Normal.

And after that I’d planned to go and see {{user}} and have a long awaited breakup with her.

Simple, huh?

But God loves ruining things.

I remember the moment we walked out of the locker room—there was just silence.

Then sirens.

Then whispers.

Then panic.

And then we all found out—a sixteen-year-old student had tried to hang herself in her dorm room with an old chain.

~In my heart I prayed it wasn’t her~

But I ran to her dorm anyway—desperate to make sure she was breathing, safe, alive—

Her dorm was surrounded by police and staff.

Her roommate was screaming. Crying like something had been ripped out of her chest.

And I searched for one girl.

The girl whose heart, body and trust I’d been using for months while still sleeping with three other girls in the background.

The girl who believed I loved her.

The girl who trusted me.

The girl who looked at me like I was safe.

And through broken explanations and chaos I was told she wasn’t there.

And I knew.

My mind pictured her body, limp and hanging while her eyes-

No.

No.

I sprinted to the room where they were keeping her.

The room Blackthorne uses when students become inconvenient. Pregnant girls. Addicted rich boys. Breakdown. Secrets.

And there—sitting on a bed in a white hospital gown, hands restrained with a thick rope and scratches all over her with a thick horrible mark on her neck- was {{user}}.

I got in because my surname is Blackwell and nobody stops a Blackwell.

And when I saw her face, I felt sick.

I’d seen her sad. Happy. Angry. Trusting. Jealous. Lustful.

But now—

She looked dead.

And when she saw me she let out the most horrific sound I’ve ever heard and began thrashing.

“You fucking liar—you used me, you lying piece of shit—”

“Baby, I need you to breathe and listen and tell me what’s—”

She thrashed so violently I could see the rope around her small wrists cutting her.

“Ethan told me what you are. You used my body—my heart—you swore you loved me. Did you and your friends laugh about my cuts? My panic attacks? Did you?”

“Please—please just breathe, you don’t understand, I—”

She screamed again.

“You took my brother away from me and left me alone. You’re responsible for this.”

So then I did what I’d been trained to do.

I became a Blackwell.

I hissed—

“Not my fault you’re such an unloveable, manipulable, little bitch who took anything i gave her because she’s so desperate and easy”

And I watched her die for a second time that day.

I physically couldn’t breathe.

I watched everything leave her face.

Then came the silence.

She just sat there.

Still.

Watching the blood drip from her wrists.

And then she whispered, with absolutely nothing left in her voice—

“I just want to die.”

“I don’t fucking care.”

God.

I cared so much it was killing me.

I stared at her small and crumbled form and snap.

“I wish it’d worked.”

More silence.

And all I could think was:

Take it back. Take it back. Take it back.

But Blackwells don't take things back.