Chapter 35
“Collision Course
The air was too still.
Not a sound from the walls. No buzzing. No humming motor. Just silence unnatural, breath–holding silence.
Vivienne took a step back and almost tripped over her own feet. Her hand caught the railing behind her, cold metal biting into her palm as if it were made to punish hesitation. She inhaled slowly, forcing the air into her lungs.
The darkness had a shape now. It wasn’t just absence. It was the presence. It grew, slid between her bones, and wrapped around her skin like velvet soaked in ice.
Her voice sounded thinner than she wanted it to. “How long do these things usually take?”
No answer.
She turned her head, blinking against the dark until his outline became visible. Magnus. Standing there. Still. Silent. Arms crossed. As calm as if they were in a boardroom instead of stuck inside a steel box twenty floors off the ground.
She swallowed. “Magnus?”
“What?”
He said it flatly, without moving.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Five minutes. Ten. Maybe thirty.”
“That long?”
“Elevators get stuck, Vivienne. They’re not magic. They don’t fix themselves.”
She let out a breath through her nose. “Right. I just ” She stopped. What could she say? That the dark reminded her of being a child locked in the basement during thunderstorms? That this silence screamed louder than any argument they’d ever had?
Magnus said nothing. Not even a sigh.
She turned back to the panel and pressed the emergency button again. Nothing. Not even a flicker of light.
“I think it’s dead,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
“You said the power surged.”
“Apparently.”
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“Shouldn’t backup generators”
“They should.”
She faced him. “You’re not worried?”
His brow barely lifted. “Would it help if I were?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “It wouldn’t kill you to be human for once.”
“No.” he said. “But it might kill the illusion you’ve built of me.”
She turned away again, pacing three steps in each direction, her heels echoing too loudly on the floor. “I hate the silence.”
“You always have.”
She stopped walking.
“What?”
“You hate silence,” he repeated. “You fill it. With words. With movement. With chaos.”
“You used to like that,” she said.
“I used to like a lot of things.”
Vivienne’s hands clenched into fists.
零列
A bead of sweat slid down her back, though the air was cold. She moved to the farthest wall and leaned against it. The reflection in the elevator’s polished surface showed her own tense jaw and her stiff shoulders. She looked taller in the dark, sharper. But inside, she was shrinking.
“I can’t breathe in here,” she muttered.
“You’re breathing.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
He didn’t reply.
“Do you even care?” she snapped.
“No.”
“Not even a little?”
He stepped closer. Not much. Just enough that she felt the difference.
“Do you want me to pretend?”
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“Maybe I want you to be honest for once.”
“I’m always honest,” he said. “I don’t always speak, but when I do, it’s truth.”
“Truth?” Her voice cracked. “You walked out of our marriage without one conversation.”
“You say that like I owed you something.”
“You did.”
He cocked his head. “What did I owe you, Vivienne? Another year of your pity? Another month of your bedside loyalty while I learned how to walk again with half my spine screaming?”
Her breath hitched.
“You think I was there out of pity?” she said.
“You were there because you felt guilty,” he said. “Because you didn’t know how to leave.”
“I stayed because I loved you.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you were too proud to be the one who walked away.”
“You bastard,” she whispered.
He shrugged. “It’s not a new title.”
The elevator remained dead silent.
Vivienne’s chest rose and fell faster now. She pressed her hand to the wall and closed her eyes.
“Breathe,” he said.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“You’re panicking.”
“No, I’m ” She stopped. Swallowed. “I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.”
“Then stop watching.”
She pressed her forehead to the wall. It was cool. Solid. Real.
She spoke quietly. “There’s no air in here.”
“There’s air.”
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“I can’t feel it.”
9:
He said nothing.
Her voice dropped. “This feels like that night. When you said goodbye.”
“That night, you were the one who didn’t speak.”
“I couldn’t.”
“And I couldn’t wait forever.”
She spun around. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“You asked me to suffer silently.”
“I asked you to let me in.”
“And you stood there with your mouth closed.”
“Because I didn’t know how to save you.”
“You couldn’t. That was the point.”
She stepped forward, breath uneven. “I tried.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you punish me for it?”
“Because it wasn’t enough.”
There it was. The sentence that cracked her chest open.
“I gave you everything,” she said, voice trembling. “Everything I had.”
“And it still wasn’t what I needed,” he said.
Silence dropped again.
Longer. Heavier.
Then, after a moment, he said quietly, “Still afraid of the dark?”
“You think I came here to beg?”
Vivienne’s voice cracked through the silence like a whip.
ཊྛ C6
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Magnus didn’t flinch. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, leaning slightly against the mirrored wall of the elevator like the world hadn’t tilted beneath their feet. His expression remained unreadable, calm in a way that felt cruel. Calculated,
“I asked you a question,” she said.
“I heard you.”
“And?”
He tilted his head. “And I haven’t decided if that’s exactly what this is or something worse.”
“Worse?”
“A performance.”
Vivienne’s hands curled into fists at her sides. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Only to people who lie to themselves.”
“You think I’m lying?”
“I think you’ve convinced yourself this is strength.”
She took two steps toward him, heels slicing the silence.
“And you think being ice incarnate is strength?”
“I think not needing anything is freedom.”
Vivienne laughed, but there was no humor in it just disbelief, bitterness. “You really believe that. You’ve convinced yourself that cutting people off makes you powerful.”
“It’s kept me alive.”
“Alive isn’t the same as living.”
“And love isn’t the same as saving someone,” he said. “That’s what you never understood.”
“I didn’t come to save you.”
“You tried.”
“No,” she snapped. “I came because you were mine. Because I loved you. Because walking away from you would’ve felt like cutting my own legs off.”
He finally looked at her. Their eyes narrowed, lips parted slightly, and something she couldn’t name passed over his face. A flicker. A
breath.
“You think this is love?” he asked.
