[Emma's POV]
The silence in the library was a physical weight, pressing down on them, thick with the unsaid and the unbearable. The shattered mirror upstairs was a ghost in the room, its destruction a silent scream underscoring their helplessness. Cain finally broke it, his voice raspy, stripped of its usual defiant edge, leaving only a raw, exhausted fear.
"We can't just... stand here, Jaxon. We're circling the same damn drain. We need a path forward. A real one. Not just your stubbornness against my... my desperation." He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair, the gesture one of utter defeat.
Jaxon stood by the cold fireplace, a statue of torment. He didn't turn. "And what path is that, Cain? The one that leads to her being a lab rat? The one that ends with her in a cage?"
"
