She dug her nails into her palms until blood seeped between her fingers, and still, it wasn't enough to numb the rage that pulsed beneath her skin. "They think chaining me means I am theirs. Think my silence means surrendering. But silence isn't weakness."
She spat blood on the ground, her whole body taut with rage, feeling a fury that would burn cities to ash. "They told me to be silent, to be soft, to let my pain be pretty. But I am done swallowing my words, done folding myself to fit into the shape of their comfort. I am not here to make them feel good. My strength is not a secret, and my voice is not a sin. I am loud, I am fierce. My scars are proof that I am here, that I am enduring-and I will not carry shame for surviving. I will not forgive. I will not forget. I am not their broken thing. I am the fury they tried to bury, and I will come back to them one day as the darkness they gave me."
The tent held her words, and they echoed back at her like a promise, dark and fierce. She would be the storm they'd made, and every step she would take after this would be a heartbeat of vengeance.
Because women have bled their fury for centuries, and she was done being a silent wound. Her blood would not be spilled and forgotten-it would burn, it would blaze, until the world remembered every woman who dared to survive.