Xander's POV:

She slept in the cage that night and has been there ever since.

After dressing and bandaging the wound with the limited supplies I'd collected from Nico, she crawled in there and hasn't come out.

Something she hasn't done in over a year and a half.

Back when she was skittish and hadn't yet evolved a different reaction other than fear.

She used it to just hide away for a few hours.

It was well into the afternoon of the next day and she hadn't budged.

I don't think either of us got any sleep last night.

I know that I didn't, and every time I checked in on her breathing, it showed me that she was awake too.

It was just like the waiting game I've played before with her.

When she needed a break from me and everything else she had to deal with.

Except this time it felt so much more dire, and felt absolutely nothing like a game.

Usually, during those times she'd at least look at me.

She'd meet my gaze and I'd see the anger or annoyance or sometimes just the far-away look in those eyes.

But now there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Not that I blamed her...

Everything felt empty even that ache in my chest that's been haunting and pestering me was gone completely.

The second she shut the door behind her the day before, it just vanished with her.

Only to be replaced with a violent knot in my stomach that made me feel sick.

Now that was the feeling constantly biting at me, and I did absolutely nothing to try to get rid of it.

I didn't want to, And the truth of the matter was, that feeling was the least of what I deserved from what I allowed to happen.

What I spent so much time fighting myself, trying to defuse the scene gently when she was just seconds away from-

That pain thumped hard in my chest, wincing the thought away.

I turned my head from my desk just enough for her to be in my periphery.

She was in the same spot as she was this morning, not looking to have moved an inch. Curled up and facing the wall with her eyes closed, though she wasn't asleep.

During the times where I'd have to wait her out, she would have to be the one to initiate speaking again.

Which was fine... I could usually handle the one or two days in which she kept to herself.

This time proved to be the opposite, everything crawling in me and begging for me to get some kind of reaction out of her.

Some kind of definitive hint as to what was going on in her head right now.

To check in with her and make sure she was okay.

I knew she wasn't, no one in their right mind would be and that's why I was so distraught.

The scent she was radiating wasn't one that I was too familiar with.

It wasn't the anger that I thought it would be.

The closest one I knew that I could compare it to was sadness and it was only just barely similar.

This one was almost deeper, more potent in every way.

It stung whenever it'd hit my nose, but the silent check-ins with my senses were all I could accomplish right now.

All of which still wasn't enough with the agitated itch throughout my body desperate to hear an answer with her voice.

Regardless if it was just a scoff or sigh to, a reason for her to yell at me... even just to hear her tell me to shut up again.

Something.

Anything...

I didn't give a shit about my aftermath of that. About the guilt and regret cutting through my veins with every tight beating of my heart.

All of that was nothing compared to what happened to her.

What I just stood there, fighting myself and let...

I knew that I was most definitely the last person she wanted to talk about it with.

The last person, in general, she wanted to talk to.

Not when she wouldn't even look at me.

'I don't want your help. You never offer it when it matters.'

Those words have been on loop in my mind ever since she first spoke them, the scenes from that moment playing with them.

After I was left alone in that room, and my rushing thoughts cleared up, and then ran to over-analyze every single second of it.

The pang in my throat every time that look of absolute, earth-shattering betrayal she gave me crossed my mind.

When I tore myself from her.

When for the first time in her life, she asked me for help.

She trusted me enough... Believed in me enough to trust that I would step in, and I blew it.

I completely and utterly blew it, taking that trust that I wanted so badly to nurture and shattered it on the ground.

The timing was horrendous. Everything in my brain was a haze, every sensation I was feeling was amplified and painful, and her touch that cherished so deeply just...

In the moment, was the last thing I could handle.

It startled me more than anything, since I'd never come to expect anything like the sort from her.

None of which made what I did acceptable in the slightest.

No, It just made the list longer and longer of how badly I fucked up yesterday.

Of regrets that'll haunt me for centuries to come.

How many things I needed to repent for if ever the day comes that she'll speak to me.

I knew words would never be enough. I had no hope that anything would be, but it was better than nothing.

A silent sigh blew from me as I stood.

I wouldn't blame her if she never spoke to me again.

I could only imagine the hate stirring in her currently.

After all the fun... The smiles, the laughs.

The bottom of my vision began to blur.

Fuck.

Those meant everything to me and yet I might as well have crumbled them up and tossed them in the trash myself.

For as badly as I wanted every day to be like that, I sure did a fantastic job in making sure that never had a chance to be a reality.

I rubbed a hand down my face, taking the moisture from my eyes.

My legs felt like lead a I forced them to move over to the coffee table, staying near the edge of my bed to put as much space between the cage and me as I could.

For her sake.

Even with her eyes closed, she had to be listening.

I glanced down at the untouched lunch plate I had put here for her.

At least during her usual silent treatments, she would eat.

One of the many reasons I had a constant worry over her.

I forced myself not to glance her way as I lifted the plate.

The food was now stale and room temperature, no good at all for a girl I was trying to wordlessly convince to eat it.

I turned towards the door, opening it to set the plate outside for the slaves to come and retrieve.

My eye landed on the small mechanism above the outside doorknob.

While I was out here, I triple-checked that the only remaining people who had access to my room were me, Doe, and Nico.

Then checked once more just to be safe.

There was no satisfaction from only seeing those three prints registered in the door.

No pride, or relief, or anything of the sort.

Just a weighing knowledge that it should have just been these three a long, long time ago.