Lyra's POV
Power doesn’t shatter all at once.
It fractures in whispers.
And Leo Weston, king of cold blood and quiet control, was starting to splinter.
It wasn’t obvious,nothing ever was in this damn house,but once you knew what to look for? Once you listened beneath the silence?
The cracks started speaking.
And they were getting louder.
I didn’t sleep after Leo’s little bedtime story.
Who could, after hearing your maybe-boyfriend-maybe-captor recount the first time he watched someone die over mashed potatoes?
My head spun with ghosts and questions, and my body still hummed with leftover adrenaline from the night before: s*x, war, trauma, pick your poison. They all blended the same when you woke up alone in a silk bed and wondered if the blood under your nails was metaphorical.
