The apartment is too quiet.

I wake up before the sun again. Not because I want to—because the pain drags me out of sleep like a hook in my skull. It starts behind my eye, dull and heavy, then spreads through the side of my head where the bandages wrap tight around bone that used to be whole. The doctors said the swelling is going down. They said the reconstruction worked. They said I’m lucky to be alive.

Lucky.

“Tch.” The sound scrapes out of my throat. My voice still feels wrong. Everything feels wrong.

My fingers lift slowly and brush the gauze around my head. The bandages are thick, layered over stitches and something deeper—something that never went back the way it was. I remember the moment too clearly. Maki’s fist. The flash of white. The sound. Not pain at first. Just that sickening crack of bone collapsing like rotten wood. My body hitting the ground before my brain could even process it. The Zenin estate burning behind her. Blood everywhere. My clan… gone.

I shift on the couch and the movement sends a dull throb through my skull. I’ve been sleeping here since we got back. Lying flat makes the pressure worse. The blanket slips from my shoulder as I move, and I recognize it immediately—the one Anna tucked around me during the night. I hate that she does that. Hate that she thinks I need it. Hate that I don’t push it away.

Across the room, the kitchen light is on.

She’s already awake. Barefoot on the tile, hair loosely tied at the back of her neck, one of my old shirts hanging off her shoulders while she stands at the stove stirring something in a pot. She moves quietly, careful with the cabinets, careful with the spoon against the pan, like she’s trying not to wake me. Like I’m something fragile that might break if the world is too loud.