Chapter 13: The voice
The silence inside Lia was a physical thing. A hollowed-out cavern where a thunderstorm had lived. She sat on the floor, glass dusting her hair like morbid glitter, and prodded at the emptiness. It wasn’t peaceful. It was an amputation.
“It’s gone,” she whispered, not to anyone.
Yeji watched her, one hand pressed to her bruised ribs. She had pulled on Lewis’s discarded shirt, hanging loose on her frame. “Yeah,” she said, her voice flat. “That’s the point.”
Lia’s head snapped up. The blankness fractured, replaced by a raw, wet panic. “Give it back.”
“Not a chance.”
“Yeji, please.” Lia crawled forward on her knees, ignoring the glass cutting into her skin. She stopped at Yeji’s feet, looking up. “You don’t understand. It’s… it’s quiet. It’s wrong. I feel sick. I feel dead. Please.”
“You almost killed Lewis,” Yeji said, tilting her head. “Remember? Two minutes ago? You were gonna crack his spine like a twig. That’s why we had the thing, Lia. For this.”
Lewis stood by the ruined window, the cold air raising goosebumps on his skin. He was staring at the injector on the floor. “She’s right, Lia. You lost control. You were gonna—”
“I wasn’t!” Lia shouted, the sound cracking. She turned her pleading eyes to him. “I wouldn’t have. I was just… angry. I’m sorry. Just make her give it back. Please, Lewis.”
Yeji’s laugh was a short, harsh bark. “Make me? He’s not making me do anything. We’re on the same page. Aren’t we, babe?”
Lewis didn’t meet Lia’s eyes. He gave a single, slight nod.
The betrayal was colder than the void. Lia’s breath hitched. She looked between them—Lewis, avoiding her gaze, and Yeji, standing there in his shirt, a queen in the wreckage of her home. Her home. The lavender walls were scarred, the couch shredded, the air reeked of dust and fear instead of vanilla.
“Get out,” Yeji said quietly.
Lia blinked. “What?”
“You heard me. This is my place now. You’re a liability. A normal, weak, crying liability. Get out of my apartment.”
“It’s my apartment!” Lia screamed, surging to her feet. The movement was uncoordinated, clumsy. She stumbled, her body unfamiliar and feeble. She swung a wild fist at Yeji.
Yeji caught her wrist without effort. She held it, squeezing until the bones grated. “Not anymore. Keys. Now.”
Tears of pure frustration streamed down Lia’s face. She was sobbing, tugging uselessly against Yeji’s grip. “Lewis, don’t let her do this!”
He just looked at the floor. “Maybe… maybe you should go for a while, Lia. Cool off.”
Yeji released her with a shove. Lia stumbled back into the dining table. “Keys. Or I break your arm and take them.”
Defeated, trembling, Lia fumbled in her torn pocket. She tossed the keychain onto the glass-strewn carpet. It landed with a feeble jingle.
Yeji nudged it with her toe. “Good. Now get out.”
Lia moved like a sleepwalker, or an addict in withdrawal. Her steps were shuffling, her eyes unfocused, scanning the room not for an exit, but for something, anything, that could fill the crushing void. Her gaze landed on Lewis, still nude but for the duvet around his waist. A different, manic thought flickered in her desperate eyes.
She lurched toward him.
“Whoa, Lia—” he started, holding up a hand.
She dropped to her knees in front of him, her movements jarring and sudden. Before he could react, before he could even understand her intent, she yanked the duvet away. Her hand closed around him. He was still wet from Yeji.
“What the hell are you—?” he gasped, trying to push her head away.
But she was driven by a biological desperation that overrode all shame. She took him into her mouth, a rough, aggressive act. It wasn’t affection. It was mining. She was trying to harvest, to extract some trace, some residual cell of Yeji’s power from his body. She gagged, her eyes streaming, but she pressed on, a grotesque and hopeless attempt at re-infection.
“Get OFF!” Lewis yelled, shoving her shoulders hard.
Yeji was there in an instant. She grabbed a handful of Lia’s hair and wrenched her back with a force that ripped strands from her scalp. Lia cried out, sputtering, falling onto her backside.
“You sick, desperate bitch,” Yeji hissed, standing over her.
Lia looked up, her mouth smeared. She saw the furious disgust on Yeji’s face, the shocked revulsion on Lewis’s. The hopelessness curdled into one last, vile idea. If not from him… then from the source.
As Yeji bent down to drag her to the door, Lia twisted. With the last of her frantic strength, she shoved her face between Yeji’s thighs, against the fabric of the shirt, her tongue searching for any taste, any contact that might hold the key.
The reaction was instantaneous. Yeji roared, a sound of pure outrage. She hauled Lia up by the hair and slammed her, face-first, into the front door. The impact was dull and heavy. Lia saw stars.
Yeji unlocked the door, yanked it open, and threw Lia out into the hallway. She followed, landing a final, brutal kick to her ribs. Lia collapsed onto the cold, patterned carpet, gasping.
“You come back here, I don’t call the cops,” Yeji snarled, her voice low and venomous. “I just take you apart. Piece by piece. You’re nothing now. Remember that.”
The door slammed. The deadbolt clicked.
Silence.
Lia lay there, shaking. Her body was a map of pain: the deep ache of the emptiness, the sharp sting of glass cuts, the throbbing in her scalp and ribs. She was nude. Bruised. Alone. The taste of salt and copper and someone else’s sex was in her mouth. It had yielded nothing. Just shame.
She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. The hallway stretched in both directions, dimly lit, impersonal. She had to find Yuna. Yuna would understand. Yuna had been through the change, had felt the power. Yuna would know how to get it back. She had to.
Lia began to crawl, then staggered to her feet. She moved down the hall, a naked, bleeding ghost, one hand on the wall for support. She left smudges of blood and dust behind her. At the stairwell door, she paused, her breath fogging in the cold air.
“Yuna,” she croaked, the name a prayer into the concrete silence. “Where are you?”