Chapter 3 The Price of Silence

POV Scarlett:

A week later.

Since that night under the red lights, silence has been my only companion.

It follows me like a shadow, filling the spaces where words used to live.

The waterfall has always been our blind spot.

The sound of the water crashing down creates a veil over things—a backdrop that swallows secrets and gives silence back.

I come alone, like someone walking toward her own trial. The air is heavy with mist, and the stones hold the cold of a night that hasn’t quite ended. I belong to this place as much as I belong to them. Maybe that’s why I chose this setting to kill what still exists.

I stop before the clearing. Tighten the shawl around my shoulders—the same one as yesterday, the same as always. The rough weave brings back memories I didn’t ask for, and I push them away like someone closing a window against the wind.

I see them first as shadows. Five familiar shapes, five presences my body recognizes before my heart allows it. But my eyes search only for two.

Asher—broad shoulders, the calm that always hides a storm.

Logan—posture of someone who claims the ground without asking permission.

The others stand behind them, silent witnesses to what’s about to end.

The mist gives me away.

It’s time.

...

“You disappeared,” Asher says, his voice reaching me like a blanket. “We were worried.”

I wish he were angry. Worry weakens you. Anger, I could face.

“I’m fine,” I lie, and the word falls heavy to the ground like a stone loosened from the slope.

Logan’s voice cuts through the mist. “Then why did you vanish?”

I breathe. Taste what I’m about to do. It tastes like metal and farewell.

“Because I can’t do this anymore.”

The waterfall grows louder, as if it, too, were listening. Logan takes a step forward.

“Do what?” His tone is low, deep.

“Belong to all of you.” The words scrape my throat, but they come out steady. “I can’t go on with this… madness.”

Silence opens a void between us. I look at it—the life that could have been mine if the world were less narrow. Asher breaks first.

“A week ago, you said you loved us. What changed?”

Everything. And nothing.

My father is a man of few words, but when he wants to, he can turn a sentence into a sentence. Last night, I chose which pain I could bear. Today, I pay.

I look at Asher half a second longer than I should, and in that half second, he understands enough to hurt.

“I lied,” I say.

Logan narrows his eyes. “You don’t lie well.”

“No,” I admit softly. “But sometimes that’s the only way to survive.”

Asher takes two slow steps toward me, like someone approaching a wounded animal so as not to startle it.

“Look at me,” he says.

I look. And the instant I do, I feel the danger of losing control.

He’s too close for someone who came to say goodbye. His breath brushes mine, warm, asking for home. His hands don’t touch me, but I feel their outline—as if the air between us had learned to press against my skin. I let the tips of my fingers rest in his palm, and heat travels up my arm like a live wire. The kiss almost happens, and the almost burns most of all: two mouths a breath apart, desire folded into restraint. I step back, with the effort of someone carrying her own body.

I step back.

He stops.

“It was real for me,” Asher says simply. “I don’t know how it was for you. But for me, it was real.”

The water strikes the rocks with doubled force. I think of how he pronounced for me, as if offering his chest to a blade that must cut.

Logan’s voice sharpens. “That’s it? You came here to say it’s over and that’s it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I could tell the truth. Because my father threatened to destroy you.

I could tell a half-truth. Because the town doesn’t forgive.

I could say nothing.

I choose the lie that hurts less.

“Because I never loved you.”

Logan studies me too long, as if searching my face for a crack through which the truth might escape. His jaw tightens. “Then congratulations. You’ve finally learned how to lie.”

Asher closes his eyes for a heartbeat, then opens them again—burning, broken, unflinching.

“I love you,” he says. “I won’t pretend I don’t.”

There’s an honesty in it that shatters me. I think of what my father would do with that sentence if he heard it. I think of what I’ll do with it now.

“Don’t say that,” I plead.

“It’s the only thing I have to say.” Two steps. The distance, smaller. “Look at me.”

I look. And, looking, I remember the refuge he always was.

The first time he pressed his forehead to mine, the touch was a tent in the middle of the world. His hands, when they found mine, trembled a little. I smiled into the kiss, and in that smile, we got lost. It wasn’t hunger—it was recognition: me in him, him in me. The kiss stopped before the edge, but it left the path marked through my whole body.

The sound of the waterfall swells again. I step back once more, steadier this time.

“Goodbye, Asher.”

He doesn’t answer, only watches. Logan says nothing, but his silence is a blade.

I turn away before either of them can follow. My father’s words echo behind the roar of the water.

Some chains don’t clink when they close.

I pull the shawl tighter, walk toward the woods, and let the mist swallow my figure.

Whatever waits after this—truth, punishment, freedom—I’ll face it alone.