"There must be something that turned you this way."
The words hung in the air, and a thick, heavy silence descended, pressing down on the small room. Freya's breath stalled, caught in her chest as Kael's quiet probing sliced into the raw, frozen edges she'd spent years burying.
Her pale blue eyes narrowed, flicking upward to search his face—scanning for judgment, for pity, for anything she could use to push him away. Finding nothing she could grasp, her gaze darted to the wall, and she draped her forearm over her face, shielding herself as her jaw tightened.
"You don't know shit," she muttered, her voice rough and gravelly, but the usual venom was absent, replaced by a faint tremor. Her fingers curled into the edge of the cot, gripping it as if it were the only thing anchoring her.
