Red_BatK
Zari's life has always been a balancing act: obey the rules, keep the secrets, survive the house she's never been safe in. She's seventeen and exhausted-caught between a controlling mother,a father whose rage has left deep scars, and a brother who's far more dangerous than anyone knows.
When her carefully hidden world begins to unravel-starting with a medical crisis she can't hide - it exposes cracks in her carefully constructed silence, zari finds herself pulled into the orbit of an impossibly strange family of strangers- who refuse to stay strangers: two fiercely protective brothers with their own ghosts,a trauma-informed doctor who actually listens. And literal angels, both the mythic and the human kind who somehow make her feel safer than home ever did.
But Azariya doesn't trust easily. Not with her body, not with her story, not with the memories she can barely admit to herself.
As quiet clues begin to surface-bruises she won't explain, things she flinches from, nights she won't talk about-those around her begin piecing together the truth. And when she's reunited with the cousins her mother tried to erase from her life, lines are drawn and loyalties shift.
Because there's more happening in Azariya's world than just the past she's trying to escape. And some secrets don't stay buried forever.
A slow-burn, trauma-informed story of survival, found family, unraveling mystery, jaw dropping action and what happens when the people you're most afraid to trust refuse to give up on you.
⚠️ Content warnings:
This story contains depictions and discussions of physical abuse, emotional abuse, and sexual assault (non-graphic but emotionally intense). It also includes themes of PTSD, chronic illness, panic attacks, medical trauma, and self-harm (more to be added as story gets updated). This story contains senstive material,reader discretion is advised. All sensitive content is handled with care and respect, with a focus on healing and support-not sensationalism.