Taking Control. (a Ninjago fanfic)

Chapter 77- Not alone

Z A N E

I didn't move.

None of us did.

The echo of Jay's footsteps—panicked, stumbling, retreating—faded like smoke up the hall. A door closed somewhere in the monastery. Too softly to slam.

Just... closed.

Like something final.

The silence was deafening.

Lloyd stood frozen beside me, his eyes still locked on the blank TV screen. Rue had both hands in her hair, her knees pulled up like she needed to disappear into herself. Kai was motionless, halfway to standing, his hand still outstretched towards a brother who wouldn't take it.

Only Cole moved.

He sighed, long and tired, before stepping out into the corridor. I saw the look in his eyes. Tired, broken, desperate. I knew what he wanted to happen. What everybody wanted to happen.

Everybody wanted this all to be

over.

Over and done with.

But it didn't seem to stop. It was like everyday produced a new hurdle we had to jump over—

and we were all getting tired of jumping.

Nobody said anything.

Because what was there to say?

Jay's voice still echoed inside my brain.

"They think I wanted to kill people."

He meant it. He truly believed that was how the world saw him now. Not as a victim. Not as a hero fighting to claw his way back.

But as the villain.

A threat.

A mistake.

The others were spiraling inward, collapsing under the weight of it. I could feel it in the room—the thick, stifling heaviness of grief that hadn't found its final shape yet. The kind that hadn't been cried out. The kind that had only just started to rot and decay. The kind that had been sat, locked away, for too long.

"We shouldn't have let him see it," Nya said suddenly, voice cracked and tight. She hadn't spoken until now. "We should've changed the channel. But we were too fucking slow. He was getting better— and now because of us he's even worse than before."

"It's not our fault," Lloyd murmured. "He probably would've seen it one way or another."But even he didn't sound sure.

"He's not going to believe anything we say now," Rue added, softly. "No matter how hard we try."

Kai sat down again like his legs had given up. His voice was quiet, but rough. "He looked like he believed it. All of it."

"He didn't fight back," Cole said from the hall. "He didn't even try to defend himself."

"Because he thinks he deserves it." Rue wiped her face. "Every remark, every headline. He thinks he earned them."

That thought clamped around my chest like ice.

Jay had been the heart of our team. The loudest, the brightest, the one who never shut up but always somehow said exactly what someone needed to hear.

This just wasn't right.

"I will go to him," I said, finally standing.

"No." Pixal, who had been silent for a while now, stepped into my path. She looked... lost. Like there were a dozen words on her tongue, and not one of them made sense. "He won't hear you right now. Or anyone."