To ruin an Omega novel Chapter 414

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.

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