Page 122 of Psycho Pack

"The worst part?" My laugh is hollow, bitter. "I became exactly what I always wanted to be. A healer. The thing that was forbidden to me because I was born intothis." I gesture at the opulent room, at the evidence of a life I tried to leave behind. "The path was carved for me before I drew my first breath, even though I'm the youngest of three. The spare of the spare."

My fingers find the spine of one of my old medical texts, tracing the worn leather. "I used to sneak these in, hide them under my bed. Study them by candlelight when everyone thought I was sleeping. And now..." Another broken laugh escapes me. "Now I'm exactly what I was never allowed to be. Just another betrayal to add to the list."

The silence stretches. I wait for her questions about my brothers, about why they haven't appeared to greet us. About where my father is. But they don't come. She just watches me.

"My mother hasn't said anything about my father. About the king," I continue, the words flowing freely now. "Or my brothers. And I'm afraid to ask. Afraid to know if..." I swallow hard. "If something happened while I was gone. If I abandoned them when they needed me."

My hands won't stop shaking. I clench them into fists, nails digging into my palms. "I keep thinking about what we'll discuss after dinner. About what she'll tell me. About who's still..." I can't finish the sentence.

"You don't have to face it alone," Ivy says softly.

The gentleness in her voice nearly breaks me. I whirl to face her, suddenly angry. Not at her—never at her—but at myself.

At the situation.

At everything.

"Don't you understand?" I demand. "I'm a murderer. A coward. I killed my best friend and ran away from everything instead of facing the consequences. I betrayed my family, my position, everything I was supposed to be. And then I became the one thing I was forbidden to be, as if to spite them all."

She rises from the window seat, moving toward me with that quiet grace that always catches me off guard. I back away until I hit my old workbench. Bottles rattle behind me.

"Stop," I warn her. "Don't... don't try to comfort me. I don't deserve it. Any of it. This second chance I never earned. I especially don't deserveyou."

But she doesn't stop. She reaches for my hand—a hand stained with the blood of countless ghosts—and I flinch away.

"These hands have saved lives," she says firmly. "I've watched you put our pack back together time and again. Watched you heal instead of harm. That's who you are now."

"You don't know what I've done. The lives I've taken as a Ghost?—"

"I know exactly what you've done." She catches my hand before I can pull away again. "I've seen you at your worst and your best. We all have. And we're still here."

I stare down at where her small fingers wrap around mine. The contrast is stark. "You should run," I whisper. "All of you. Before I destroy everything again. Before?—"

"We're not going anywhere." She squeezes my hand. "The past doesn't define who you are now. What happened was tragic, but you were young and scared and backed into a corner. He betrayed you first."

"That doesn't justify anything. I could have just overpowered?—"

"No," she agrees. "But it explains it. And you've spent every day since then trying to atone by fighting for a better world. By protecting instead of destroying."

The tears I've been holding back for a decade burn behind my eyes. "It was all in vain," I say hoarsely.

"You didn't know the Council was corrupt," she says, reaching up with her free hand and cupping my face. "You did your best. That has to be enough, Hamsa."

The sound of my true name on her lips shatters something inside me. A dam I've spent a decade building crumbles in an instant. My knees buckle and I sink to the floor, dragging her with me because I can't let go of her hand.Won'tlet go. She's the only thing anchoring me to reality as the carefully constructed walls I've hidden behind come crashing down.

"I don't deserve forgiveness," I choke out, the words tearing from my throat. "I let them think whatever horror their minds conjured up. Let my mother mourn not knowing if I was dead or alive. Let her wonder what she did wrong, when the failure was mine. Always mine."

Ivy's arms wrap around me, and I should push her away. Should maintain the distance that's kept me sane all these years. But I can't. I bury my face in her neck instead, breathing in her honeysuckle scent as tremors wrack my frame.

"And now you're here," she finishes. "With us. With me."

My hands find her waist, gripping too tight but I can't seem to let go. "I destroy everything," I warn her. "It's what I do. What I've always done. Everything I touch turns to ash."

She just looks at me, those aquamarine eyes seeing straight through every defense I have left. "I'm not afraid of your darkness," she says simply. "I have plenty of my own."

And somehow that breaks me more than anything else. My forehead falls against hers as the last of my walls crumble.

"I'm so tired," I whisper. "So tired of pretending. Of hiding. Of being something I'm not."