Page 86 of Top Shelf

The words leave my lips like poison. I can taste the bile.

I force myself to breathe through it, feeling sicker and sicker by the second. My lungs tighten, drawing less and less air. My chest seizes. The edges of the room blur, tilt, then vanish entirely as the panic crests like a wave and crashes into me. Sudden and violent, it drowns me before I can scream.

I can’t?—

I can’t?—

My hands shake so badly that I drop the glass of water Lucian brought me. It shatters on the floor. I flinch at the sound, but I don’t move.

“Hey, just breathe,” one of them says. There’s a hand rubbing my back, and someone else pushes my head betweenmy knees. Silas’s hand remains steadily in mine, my nails digging into his flesh as I succumb to the panic. The fear.

I gasp—a horrible, wet sound, like something feral breaking free. Like every sob I never allowed myself, now demands to be heard. My body convulses as the tears finally come, not quiet anymore, but ragged and wild andreal. It feels like something inside me has finally split open.

I feel itall. The humiliation. The confusion. The searing, violating shame. The questions I never asked out loud because I already hated the answers. Did I deserve it? Was it my fault? Did Iletthis happen to me?

I scrape at my chest like I can dig out all the awful feelings, like I can tear them free. But they’re rooted too deep, tangled like thorns around my ribs.

Arms close around me. Not restraining. Just...holding. They anchor me in the present.

Ronan’s across from me one second, then in front of me the next. One hand at my back, the other bracing my thigh like he’s grounding me to the earth. “Hey,” he says softly, eyes shining like wet onyx. “Look at me, Wren. I’ve got you.”

Lucian folds himself around my side. His jaw is tight, his throat working around emotion he won’t let free. “You’re safe now, Little Moth. Nobody’s going to hurt you again.” His voice is like gravel, his words a violent promise.

Silas moves closer, pressing his forehead against mine, our clasped hands resting against my chest, like he’s trying to calm the frantic beating of my heart with his own silent presence.

And I break. Like glass under pressure, sharp and irreparable.

I break for the girl I was. For the parts of me I lost that night. For the silence that followed. I break beneath the weight of carrying it all alone.

And they let me.

They let me fall apart. They don’t hush me or flinch or recoil.

They hold me through it. Theyfeelit with me.

Lucian’s thumb brushes the tears from my cheek, rough fingers tender in a way that guts me, especially from someone who holds the world at arm’s length. Ronan keeps whispering, “You’re safe. We’ve got you. Just breathe, baby, breathe.” And Silas never once lets go of my hand, his presence solid and steady at my side.

They don’t spew false platitudes likeit’s going to be okay, but I believe them when they tell me I’m safe. Because for the first time in years…Iam.

22

WREN

I enterthe land of the living slowly, reluctantly, with swollen, crusted eyes and a residual headache—low and dull, like a bruise pressing against the inside of my skull. Not quite a hangover, but close. The emotional equivalent of one.

There’s a heaviness in my chest, in my limbs. The kind that comes after a long, hard cry. After you’ve let something out that’s been festering for years. It’s a catharsis of sorts. The shedding of a weight you hadn’t even known you were carrying.

I must have cried myself to sleep eventually, and I have no idea how long I’ve been out. Shifting slightly on the sofa, the blanket tucked around me rustles. Someone must have pulled it over me after I fell asleep. Inhaling, it smells of laundry detergent, fabric softener, and something more masculine. Something distinctlythem.

Cautiously, bracing against the world beyond my warm cocoon, I peel open my eyes. I’m still on the old, worn couch in their house, although now I’m alone. Rolling onto my back, I stare at the daylight that dances across the ceiling as I sift through the fog in my head. Last night replays behind my eyes like a montage.

I should feel embarrassed, I think. For breaking down. For sobbing until I couldn’t breathe. For crumbling in front of three boys I once swore to never trust. And yet, if anything, the shame is finallygone.

I sink further into the sofa cushions, pulling the blanket tight beneath my chin as I allow myself to float in the quiet, in the strange sense ofrightnesscurling low in my stomach. Perhaps I’m foolish for believing these men I don’t truly know. For taking them at their word, but Idobelieve them. If I’m being honest, I haven’t really thought they were guilty in a while. I clung to the idea of their guilt because the alternative—the unknown—was too terrifying to face.

If not them…then who?

But last night changed something. No more running. No more hiding. I’m not afraid of them anymore. I’m not afraidwiththem.