To ruin an Omega

Chapter 414: The Coward

GABRIEL

The first thing I felt was the weight of the fork in my hand.

It took me a moment to understand what that meant. The weight. The pressure of metal against skin that belonged to me. The slight tremor in fingers I could actually feel.

I blinked, and the world sharpened around me in a way it had not done in what felt like forever, with all that had happened. I was in the dining room. The morning light streaming through the windows I recognized but had only now seen through a film of distance and horror. Morrigan was sitting across from me, her teacup raised halfway to her lips. Fia was beside her, one hand resting protectively over her stomach.

They were talking.

I could hear them clearly now. None of it came out muffled and filtered through the prison Aldric had shoved me into when he crawled inside my skull and made my body his.

This was real.

This was mine.

I had control.

The realization hit me so hard I almost dropped the fork. My heart hammered against my ribs with a violence that made my vision blur at the edges, and I had to force myself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. The air tasted different when I was the one pulling it into my lungs instead of just watching Aldric do it.

How long had it been?

A day? Two? No… It had been a couple of days. Even at that… It had felt like weeks.

Time had fractured while I was trapped. I remembered fragments. Flashes of movement and sound that did not belong to me but happened anyway because Aldric had worn me like a coat and done whatever he wanted while I screamed inside a cage made of my own flesh.

I remembered the delicate.

The memory surfaced without warning, sharp and jagged. How could I forget that voice? That young and terrified voice. Her voice had been high and pleading when she called out to me to save her, thinking I was someone who would help her and keep my word.

But I had not been myself.

It had also not been me with Elara. I felt my stomach lurch.

No.

Not my stomach. Not my hands. Not my anything.

But I remembered it. The way her neck had felt beneath fingers that were mine but not mine. The sound she made when the air stopped reaching her lungs. The way her body went slack and heavy and wrong in a way that would never leave me, even if I lived a thousand years. When I had taken that rock and slammed it into her skull.

That was his own daughter. But he had still done it.

Aldric had killed her.

He had taken my hands and used them to snuff out her life like it meant nothing, and then he had buried her in the forest where no one would find her.

It was then it set in.

The fork slipped from my grip and clattered against the plate.

Morrigan looked up, her expression shifting from easy conversation to concern in the space of a heartbeat.

“Gabriel, are you alright? You look pale.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but the words tangled on my tongue. My throat felt tight and raw. Like I had been screaming for days and only just now stopped long enough to notice the damage.

I tried to speak again, but all that came out was a rough exhale that sounded more like a gasp.

The other person… Fia… leaned forward slightly, her brow furrowing. “Uncle Gabriel?”

Uncle.

The word settled over me with a weight I had not expected. I was her uncle. I was family. I barely knew the girl, but I knew I was supposed to protect her and keep her safe and make sure nothing bad ever touched her or Cian or anyone in this house.

But I had failed in that regard.

Aldric had used me to send letters. I remembered that too. The scratch of pen on paper. The careful choice of words designed to manipulate and destroy. Her, especially, and in turn Cian.

And now Cian was out there searching for a girl who was already dead.

A girl I had killed.

No.

Not me.

But my hands. My body. My face that Elara had seen in her final moments.

It did not matter that I had been screaming inside my own head while it happened. It did not matter that I had tried to stop him. The result was the same. She was gone, and I was the weapon Aldric had used to make it happen.

I had to tell them.

I had to warn them before he came back. Before he took control again and finished whatever sick plan he had been building while I watched helplessly from the inside.

“He—” The word came out strangled and broken. I tried again, forcing the sound past the tightness in my throat. “He killed—”

Morrigan set her teacup down with a soft click. “Gabriel, what is wrong? Do you need water?”

“No.” I shook my head, too hard, too fast. The room tilted slightly and I gripped the edge of the table to steady myself. “You need to listen. You need to—”

The pull started then.

I felt it deep in my chest, like someone had hooked a line around my ribs and was dragging me backward. Away from the light. Away from control. Away from everything, I had just barely managed to claw back.

No.

Not now.

Not yet.

I tried to hold on. I dug my metaphorical heels into whatever part of my consciousness still felt solid and fought against the pull with everything I had. But it was useless. Aldric was stronger. He had always been stronger, and the rune that bound him to this body was not something I knew how to break.

Fia stood up, her hand reaching across the table toward me. “Uncle Gabriel, you are scaring us. What is wrong?”

“The Delicate.” The title came out barely louder than a whisper, but it came out. I forced my eyes to meet hers, trying to pour every ounce of desperation and warning into that single look. “He used her. The letters. He sent them. He even hurt her… His own… He killed her. He is going to—”

The pull grew stronger and just as sharp. It yanked at me with a violence that made my vision fracture at the edges, and I knew I only had seconds left. Maybe less.

I had to tell them. I had to make them understand.

Morrigan was on her feet now, too, her face pale. “Gabriel, slow down. What are you talking about?”

But I could not slow down. There was no time.

The darkness was already creeping in at the edges. I could feel Aldric surging back, furious and vicious and ready to tear me apart for this brief moment of rebellion.

I had one chance. One sentence. One warning before he shoved me back into the cage and made sure I never got out again.

I looked at Fia. At Morrigan. At the two people sitting in this room who had no idea what was living inside me.

And I said the only thing that mattered.

“You are going to die.” My voice cracked on the words, rough and desperate and breaking. “Everybody is going to die.”

Fia went rigid. Morrigan’s hand flew to her mouth.

But they did not seem to get it. Not nearly quickly enough. So my hand moved before I could think it through. I grabbed the fork from the table, gripped it tight, and drove it toward my throat.

If I died, he died with me. If I killed this body, Aldric would have nowhere to hide. No weapon to use. No way to hurt anyone else with hands that had already done too much damage.

It was the only way.

The only thing I could do to stop him.

The tines were halfway to my neck when my hand froze as if locked in place. The muscles seized up so violently that it felt like someone had grabbed my wrist and held it there with iron strength.

Aldric.

He was fighting back. Clawing his way to the surface with a speed that made my head spin.

I tried to push harder. Tried to force the fork down those final inches. But my arm would not move. My fingers started to loosen against my will, and I knew I was losing.

“No,” I choked out. The word was barely audible. “No, please, I— have to—”

Fia screamed.

Morrigan lunged forward, her hands reaching for the fork, but she was too slow.

The darkness surged up and swallowed me whole before either of them could reach me. Before I could finish what I started. Before I could do the one thing that would have saved them all.

Aldric ripped control away from me with a violence that felt like being torn in half, and the last thing I heard before I disappeared was my own voice speaking words I was not saying.

“I… I am sorry. I do not know what came over me. I guess my mental health is still in a very bad place, I think.”

The fork clattered to the table.

And I was gone.

And then the darkness swallowed me whole.

The last thing I felt was Aldric’s rage, hot and suffocating, as he ripped control away from me and shoved me back down into the prison I had only just escaped.

The last thing I heard was Fia’s voice, high and sharp with fear.

“**** ***** ** *****.”