Silent love

Chapter 52

On the previous chapter...

I'm back to the little girl who couldn't safe her brother that night. The little girl who almost lost her brother because she was too weak to safe him. The little girl who lost her mother. A little girl who left the building with all wounds. A little girl who lost a lot that night and was never the same ever again.

I gasped, the air clawing at my throat as the memory hit me like a freight train. Jacques. My brother. The time I almost lost him.

I couldn't breathe. Not again.

The walls closed in, and I couldn't escape. Not again.

I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to block out the horror, but it wasn't enough. The flames were so close now. Too close.

My mother, her face, her hands, reaching for me as she burned.

No...

I whimpered, unable to push the images out of my mind.

And this time, this time it was him. Federico.

I choked on a sob. Not him too.

My body trembled violently, my chest heaving with the desperate need for air, for anything to stop the world from crashing down around me. My hand reached for Silvio, gripping him as though he could hold the world still.

But I already knew.

I already knew that the flames wouldn't stop.

And neither would the pain.

   

            ʚ YAQUELINE'S POV ɞ

The house was still. Dead quiet, like a tomb where only ghosts lingered.

I hadn't moved since we got back, hadn't even acknowledged the weight of the world crashing down on me. I just stood there, frozen, staring at the walls like they might swallow me whole. My body felt foreign, like it didn't belong to me anymore. My limbs were heavy. My mind, scattered.

I didn't care about the blood or the smoke that still clung to me. The fire wasn't gone. Not really. It was still there smoldering in my bones, in my mind, in my heart.

I was still there, somewhere. But I didn't know how to reach myself.

"Yaqueline". Silvio's voice broke through the numbness like a knife, sharp and insistent.

I didn't respond. I couldn't.

His footsteps approached slowly, cautiously, like he wasn't sure what to do with me. I felt him standing behind me, close enough to touch, but he didn't.

Then, he said it.

"Take a shower. Clean yourself up. You need to".

The words hit me like a slap. The words might as well have been an insult. I don't know why. Maybe it was the way he said it, like I was just another problem to solve.

Like it was that easy.

They were nothing but an empty suggestion in a room full of broken bodies, broken people. It wasn't that simple. I wasn't broken from blood or sweat. I was shattered from betrayal. But I couldn't speak, couldn't even fully comprehend what he was saying until I felt that old, familiar anger bubbling up.

I turned on him so fast, my fists clenched, teeth gritted. "Fix me?" I spat. "You think you can fix this?"

Silvio's gaze softened, but it wasn't enough. It never was.