~ đź–¤
---
Maya has seen the truth.
And still—still—she walks back to Elias.
Because even when love is poison, sometimes it's the only thing keeping you alive.
---
The rain was still falling when Maya reached Elias's house.
She didn't knock.
Didn't wait for him to open the door.
She used the key he'd given her in a moment of weakness — a moment she never thought she'd claim.
The lights inside were dim.
The air was thick.
And Elias… was sitting on the couch, shirtless, staring at the wall like he'd been waiting for her shadow to walk through that door.
He didn't stand.
Didn't speak.
But his eyes tracked her every step.
She was dripping wet, mascara smeared, Mira's locket clenched in her fist.
> "I saw Jax," she said softly.
Still, he said nothing.
> "He told me about Mira. About the lies. About the things you never knew."
His jaw flexed.
> "Did you believe him?"
> "I read it in her diary."
> "And?"
> "She was never pregnant."
> "No."
A pause.
> "She made sure we hated each other for something that was never real."
> "Yes."
> "And now all that's left is you. Me. And the wreckage she left behind."
He finally looked at her — not with anger, but with something colder.
Resignation.
> "Then leave," he whispered. "While you still can."
Maya dropped the locket on the floor.
> "No."
> "Maya—"
> "I'm done running from the fire. I want to burn."
And then she crossed the room and climbed onto his lap.
---
Elias didn't touch her at first.
He just stared at her like she wasn't real.
Then, as if a switch flipped inside him, his hands grabbed her thighs — hard, bruising — and he pulled her flush against him.
> "Don't say I didn't warn you," he growled.
> "Don't pretend I didn't come here to be ruined."
And he kissed her — not like a man in love, but like a man who hated how much he needed the taste of her pain.
---
They didn't make love.
They consumed each other.
He tore her clothes off in silence.
She scraped her nails down his chest in fury.
He pinned her wrists to the floor like she was prey.
She wrapped her legs around his waist like chains.
Every thrust was a punishment.
Every gasp, a prayer.
Every bruise, a memory branded into flesh.
---
> "Say it," Elias rasped.
> "Say what?"
> "That you're mine. Even now."
> "I've always been yours."
> "No," he growled. "Not the soft kind of yours. Not the 'maybe' kind."
> "Then say it for me."
> "You are mine, Maya. In the way that breaks people."
She smiled through tears.
> "Then break me."
---
Afterward, they lay on the floor, bodies trembling, breath ragged, soaked in sweat and silence.
Maya reached for his hand.
He let her take it.
---
> "You know this isn't love, right?" she whispered.
> "It's all I have left."
> "It hurts."
> "Then let it."
> "People survive this kind of pain."
Elias turned to look at her.
> "No, they don't."
---
And Maya knew it too.
Because something inside her had cracked open.
The part of her that once wanted to be saved.
The girl who longed for softness, for light.
She was gone now.
Replaced by someone who wanted to feel everything — even if it killed her.
---
Later, Elias brought her water. A blanket. An apology he never spoke but showed in the gentleness of how he cleaned the blood on her lip from where he'd kissed her too hard.
> "I hated her," he said quietly. "In the end, I hated Mira."
> "Because she lied?"
> "Because she made me choose between the girl who needed me… and the ghost who wanted to own me."
> "She didn't win."
> "Didn't she? Look at us."
Maya closed her eyes.
> "We're still here."
> "For now."
---
And across town, Jax watched them through a cracked window.
He'd followed Maya home.
He'd seen the light in Elias's bedroom.
He knew what had happened.
But it didn't hurt the way it used to.
Now it burned.
---
He opened his phone.
Scrolled to the photo of them — all three — from the party the night Mira died.
Maya laughing.
Mira posing.
Elias standing behind them, hand on Mira's waist, eyes… watching Maya.
> "You never saw it, did you?" Jax muttered to himself. "He wanted you even then."
And that's when the thought landed — dark, solid, certain.
If Elias had wanted Maya back then… maybe Mira had seen it.
Maybe Mira didn't die by accident.
Maybe she made it happen.
To punish them both.
To mark them.
---
Back in Elias's bed, Maya whispered into his chest:
> "I don't think I'm scared anymore."
> "You should be."
> "Why?"
> "Because I'm not done breaking you."
And Maya, eyes open, smiling like a girl who'd already lost everything, said:
> "Then do it right this time."
---
đź–¤