---- Chapter 4 Emily POV: "Dallas!" Killian' s voice was laced with panic. He rushed to her side, dropping to his knees on the filthy ground without a second thought for his thousand-dollar suit. "Are you okay? Did she hurt you?" He gently cradled her face in his hands, his thumbs stroking her cheeks as he scanned her for any injury. With a tenderness that felt like a physical assault on my own heart, he took out a silk handkerchief and began dabbing at a speck of dirt on her coat, his touch infinitely more careful than any he had shown me in months. Dallas looked up at him, her eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears. She peeked at me from under her lashes, a tiny, triumphant smirk playing on her lips for a fraction of a second before she replaced it with a look of pure terror. "I... I'm okay, Killy. | just... | startled her." Killian helped her to her feet, his arm securely around her waist. Once he was sure she was unharmed, he rounded on me. His face was a thundercloud of fury. "What is wrong with you, Emily?" he snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "| know you don't like her, but to physically attack her? After all these years, you're still holding onto some ---- stupid high school grudge?" "A stupid grudge?" | choked out, the words catching in my throat. He was trivializing the trauma that had shaped my teenage years, defending the person who had inflicted it. "She tormented me, Killian! She scarred me!" "It was high school, Emily! Kids are cruel. She's apologized. You need to let it go," he said, dismissing my pain with a wave of his hand. It was as if he' d completely forgotten his own promise to make her pay. Dallas, ever the actress, placed a gentle hand on Killian's arm "Don't be angry with her, Killy. It's my fault. | shouldn't have pushed her to be friends so soon." Her eyes met mine over his shoulder, and they were gleaming with malicious glee. | ignored them both, my gaze fixed on the ground where a small, cardboard box had fallen from my bag. It held the few precious things of Leo's I'd come to retrieve. | bent down, my hands shaking, and began to gather the scattered drawings. "Here, let me help," Dallas cooed, stepping forward. She knelt beside me, her movements graceful and poised. She reached for a small, hand-painted clay bird, one of the last things Leo had made in his hospital art therapy class. Her fingers closed around it, and then, as her eyes met mine, she deliberately tightened her grip. Crack. ---- The sound of the fragile clay shattering was louder than a gunshot in the tense silence. The painted bird, Leo' s last creation, crumbled into dust and fragments in her palm. Something inside me snapped. A primal scream of rage and grief tore from my throat. | lunged at her, my vision blurring with tears. "You monster!" | never reached her. Killian moved faster than | could have imagined. His hand shot out, grabbing my arm not to stop me, but to shove me away from Dallas. The force of the push sent me stumbling backward. My heel caught on the uneven pavement, and | fell hard, landing amidst the scattered remnants of my brother' s memories. A sharp, searing pain shot up my arm as it hit the curb. | cried out, cradling my wrist, the skin already blooming into an ugly purple bruise. "Have you lost your mind?" Killian roared, his face contorted with rage. He stood protectively in front of Dallas, completely ignoring the fact that | was hurt. "It was an accident! It's just a stupid clay bird!" "It was Leo's," | whispered, the words ragged. "He made it for me. It was the last thing he ever made." Killian' s anger faltered for a second, but then his jaw tightened. "I'll buy you a hundred of them. A thousand. I'll ---- commission a famous artist to make you one out of solid gold if you'll just stop this ridiculous drama." He didn't remember. He didn't remember Leo proudly showing it to him on FaceTime, his weak voice full of joy. He didn't remember promising Leo he'd put it on his desk at the office. He had forgotten. It was just a thing to him, easily replaceable with money. All the fight drained out of me, replaced by a profound, soul- crushing exhaustion. There was no point. He wouldn't understand. He couldn't. | slowly, painfully, got to my feet, my bruised wrist throbbing in time with my shattered heart. | didn't even look at them. | just turned and started walking away, down the dark, empty street. "Emily, wait!" Killian called after me. "Don't be childish! Get in the car!" The Maybach pulled up beside me, its engine a low purr. He leaned across the passenger seat, his face set in a stubborn scowl. "I'm not leaving you here. Get in." | didn't have the strength to argue. Numbly, | opened the back door and slid onto the plush leather seat. Dallas was in the front, of course. The car filled with her cloying perfume and the sound of her soft voice as she recounted some trivial celebrity gossip to Killian. He responded with low murmurs of interest, his eyes meeting hers in the rearview mirror. | was invisible, a ghost in the ---- backseat of my own life. My mind replayed a highlight reel of Dallas's cruelty since she'd re-entered our lives. The dead rat she'd had delivered to my doorstep. The anonymous emails sent to Killian containing old, embarrassing photos of me from my high school yearbook. The "accidental" spilling of red wine on the dress my mother had worn at her wedding, which | had been saving. Each incident had been dismissed by Killian as a misunderstanding or a prank. His blindness wasn't an accident; it was a choice. A sudden, violent screech of tires tore through the night, yanking me from my miserable thoughts. | looked up just in time to see the blinding headlights of a massive truck barreling towards us from a side street, its horn blaring a deafening, terrifying warning.