Thank you so much to everyone who left reviews, and to everyone who sends their comments via DMs. This is a really tough arc to write emotionally, so I cannot tell you how uch I appreciate it, even if I don't quite have it in my to reply to everyone.

CONTENT WARNING: Panic attack.

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Two more days passed, and Damian was still nowhere to be seen.

"Where the hell is he?" Becky muttered, chewing on the end of her own pencil.

Next to her, Anya fidgeted with the ends of her hair, doing everything possible not to burst into tears right in the middle of class. Her legs shook beneath the desk, and she had tipped her head forward, letting her pink hair from a curtain between her and the rest of the world. She couldn't deal with the stares. Accusing, curious, or pitiful - all of them made her feel so much worse than she already did.

Anya couldn't concentrate on a single thing. Every word that came out of the teacher's mouth was gibberish, and her eyes were almost so permanently blurry that she could barely see the notes she was taking as her hand moved mechanically in front of her. Meanwhile, her mind spun and spun and spun, swept up by her own despair, and her desperate wish for Damian to come back, so that she could speak to him, so that she could beg for his forgiveness, so that she could at least do something to lessen the feel of her heart hollowing itself from the inside.

Anya tried to stay out of Becky's thoughts, because in there was just a mess of everything that Anya had been worried about, plus the question of what happened to Damian, and how to get Ewen and Emile to talk to her, and so much else that it swirled in Anya's stomach, threatening to make her vomit at any moment.

In fact, she really thought she was going to be sick. The ever-present nausea had festered in the pit of her belly, tightening her throat, and sweat beaded on her forehead.

It was going to happen. She was definitely going to be suddenly, horribly, violently sick. Probably in front of the entire class, and she would make a complete embarrassment of herself. Everyone would be disgusted by her. They would never let her forget it. They would all hate her. Becky would finally decide that she didn't want to be Anya's friend anymore, that all her problems were far too unbearable, and she would never talk to her again.

Anya rested on hand on her chest, and tried to take a deep breath, trying to ease the building nausea.

Calm down, Anya.

What was she doing? Twilight was the overthinker, not her. Never her. She had to stay calm. Analyse. Observe.

Breathe.

She chewed her lip. Apart from the teachers, the only people who knew anything about what happened to Damian were Ewen and Emile themselves. More and more Anya wondered that if she could just talk to them, maybe she could try to convince them that she meant no harm. Maybe they would tell her where she could find Damian, and she could apologise to him and finally make things go back to normal.

"Miss Forger, is my lesson not interesting enough for you?"

Anya snapped her head towards the teacher, who was looking at her with some measure of suspicion, and she swallowed dryly.

"Um…"

"She's not feeling well, sir!" Becky advocated for Anya, ever a true guardian angel in a crisis. "Anya's been feeling ill all day."

The teacher looked between the girls, and Anya nodded along, even though just the movement made her head spin.

I suppose it should be expected that Miss Forger hasn't responded well… given that she and Mr Desmond are close…

Anya stilled with interest. How much did the teachers know? It was almost a curse that most of her interactions with the teachers were while they were, well, teaching, which meant that it was hard for Anya to skim the surface of their minds for what she needed to know about Damian. Add that Damian and Anya were hardly most people's top concerns - most people were usually thinking very intently about their own issues, that there was almost no space for anything else, which frustrated Anya to no end because why couldn't people just think the things she needed to know so that she could learn from their minds…

"Miss Forger? Did you hear what I said?"

"Huh?"

Anya jolted alert, and to her surprise, the teacher's face had morphed from suspicion to outright concern.

Perhaps it's worse than I thought… I'll have to forward this to Henry…

"You are excused, Miss Forger. If you could escort her to the infirmary, Miss Blackbell-"

"No!" Anya jolted, and steadied herself. She really did think she would be sick. "Becky doesn't need to miss class because of me. I can go on my own…"

A pause, before the teacher nodded, allowing Anya to go, and Anya shoved her things in her bag before speeding her way out of the classroom, leaving the other students behind her.

It was a saving grace that the corridors were as empty as they were, since the class had not ended quite yet. Her bag was heavy on her shoulder as she walked, one hand grazing against the wall so that at least if she fainted, there could still be some level of support. The corridor was beginning to spin around her, and her clothes stuck to her, as though her sweat was made of glue.

How far was the infirmary anyway? Surely she was almost there, since she had been walking for ages.

Maybe she should have accepted Becky's help after all…

Anya leaned against the wall, and inhaled deeply through her nose, letting it out slowly, and repeated the breathing for a time, until she was able to stand on her own feet in a more steady way. Until she was actually able to feel more balanced.

If her Papa was there, he would just tell her that the nausea was just a side effect of the anxiety, and a byproduct of being too hypervigilant - which was weird to know, because at least Anya could rationalise it to herself, but it still didn't stop the feeling from being any less intolerable and unpleasant.

The bell rang, shocking Anya out of her skin, and at the same time, doors all around her swung open while students streamed into the corridor. Anya pressed herself flat against the wall, hoping that they would just go past her and she could just wait until it was quiet again before resuming her trip to the infirmary - until something caught her attention.

Two blond heads caught her eye, and when Anya made eye contact with Ewen, and Emile quickly after, a cold sensation prickled at her skin.

There was a pause, as the stalemate continued, while Anya's eyes just grew wider, and neither of the boys knew how to react - until Emile panicked and grabbed Ewen's arm, and together they sprinted away from her.

"What- hey!"

She almost couldn't believe it. Did Emile and Ewen really hate her so much that they couldn't stand the sight of her? That they felt the need to run away?

Indignance flared up in her, and despite the oncoming crowd of students, Anya pushed herself into the fray.

Like everyone else, they were taller than her, so they naturally walked faster than her, but what nobody accounted for was the amount of speed and power that Anya could channel into her footsteps, and soon she had them back in her sight.

"Hey! Get back here!" she called out, but their shoulders stiffened considerably, and they only increased their speed, weaving their way through the students as fast as they could.

Panic built up in her. Anya needed to take this chance, to at least talk to them like she had wanted to, to find out what happened to Damian, because she didn't have any classes with Ewen or Emile and she wouldn't see them again for the rest of the day -

Anya tsked , and as soon as she she saw an opening in the flow of students, she darted to the side, pushing all of her weight against the floor to propel herself first to the corridor wall, before ricocheting off that surface to land in front of Emile and Ewen with her arms spread wide, stopping them in their tracks.

"What the fuck, Forger-" Ewen gasped, reeling backwards in shock.

Anya lowered her arms, but she held them in her serious gaze. "Well if you two didn't run away from me, I wouldn't have had to jump in front of you!"

"Then don't jump! What are you even doing -"

Anya fixed her gaze only on Ewen and Emile, and did her best to ignore the stares of the students passing by, accompanied with barely-hidden whispers.

"Is that Anya Forger?"

"Wasn't she the one who fainted at the tournament?"

"Those were some crazy moves…!"

"We need to talk!" she blurted, only just realising that she had absolutely no plan in mind whatsoever. The only thing that she knew for a fact was that she needed to know where Damian was, she needed to know if he was okay, she needed to know if there was still a chance in hell that she could just talk to him and apologise to him and just try to fix things because if she didn't then -

"Like hell we do!" Emile spat, the anger visible on his face, and he lowered his voice to a low hiss. "There's nothing to talk about! You cheated on Damian, and we'll never forgive you, end of story!"

"What?!" Anya couldn't believe what she had heard. "You think I cheated on him?"

"Well he said you betrayed him! What else could he have meant?"

Anya opened her mouth, about to deliver a biting retort, when her mind blanked.

There was nothing she could say. No reasonable explanation that she could use to disprove their accusations. No excuse to bring suspicion away from her.

"I…"

Anya paused as she desperately tried to think of something, anything at all, but as her mind continued to come up empty, dread settled in her body.

She couldn't tell them. She couldn't ever tell anyone , because it wasn't her secret to tell, and yet she would always be forced to bear the consequences.

"I can't…"

Her eyes pricked with tears. Because even though Damian knew all of her secrets, how could she ever explain it to their friends?

Operation Strix. Plan B. Twilight. A twelve-year long mission, now only another secret on top of many, a story that she could never tell. There was nothing she could compare it to, nothing that could possibly explain the depth of Damian's despair without revealing her family's secrets.

"I can't say," Anya mumbled, her head hung in defeat.

"Huh. Figures," said Emile dryly, and his scorn only pushed Anya even more.

"Could you at least tell me where I can find him? I have to talk to him!" she pleaded, and yet, her desperation did nothing but anger Emile even further.

"If he wanted to speak to you, Forger, then he would have!"

The words slapped her in the face.

And the worst thing was, she didn't have a single rebuttal, because Emile was right. Of course he was right. Because she had betrayed Damian so deeply, and obviously he wouldn't want to talk to her anymore, because she had broken them both beyond repair.

Still, she couldn't let that hold her back. What if Emile was only just saying that to hurt her? They both clearly didn't want her talking to Damian, but where was he? She had to know if he was okay, if he was coming back, if there was any chance at all for them… to… get back together…

Were they even still together? It couldn't… it couldn't end like this…

"We're gonna be late for the next class," Ewen interrupted gently. "Sorry, Forger. We'll see you later."

Ewen turned away, clearly expecting his friend to follow, but Anya didn't move, not letting her gaze wander from Emile's for even a second.

Static filled the air as she glared at him with renewed determination, and she lowered the wall around her mind, reaching closer to Emile's.

Inhale. Exhale. Concentrate. Until she could sense the tide of his subconscious, and she tried to find the flow of his mind, a single stream in the network of rivers of thoughts that surrounded her.

A terrible darkness surrounded him, a black mist that chilled her to the bone, but if she could just find out where Damian was, if she could just see one thing that could help her…

To her horror, Emile dragged his heavy gaze away from her, and started to follow his friend.

And Anya panicked.

No!

She grabbed his arm, intending to wrench him back towards her, to challenge him once again, but as soon as Anya's palm made contact with Emile's wrist, lightning split her vision with a loud CRACK .

She saw a shadow.

The shadow was unmistakable. She had watched the lights of passing cars illuminate that very profile while he slept next to her. She had wrapped her arms around that torso so many times, she could know it by feel and smell alone. Even his hair was distinct, always looking like he had just been running his hands through it.

It was him. It was Damian. And his entire forearm was buried in the wall.

CRACK.

A flash of light in her mind and the shadows shifted, merged together, and suddenly she saw Damian standing in the middle of a wreckage, surrounded by feathers and broken glass and splinters, but her gaze was locked on his arm.

Glass shards embedded in his skin, protruding like feathers from a fowl carcass. Rivulets of blood flowed down his forearm, dripping onto the plush carpet below.

The sight shocked her, and yet, nothing compared to the emotions that overwhelmed her completely: Incomparable fear. Blinding panic. It choked her. Goosebumps flared on her skin and she knew she had to do something, had to help somehow -

Slam! Damian shoved Ewen by the shoulder with his glass-encrusted fist and Anya watched, horrified, when red spots bloomed on his shirt, and Ewen's face contorted in pain.

She felt her own hand reach out to him, to steady him, but it wasn't her hand, her body wasn't hers to control. It felt too big for her. Too strange. She could only watch, powerless to act, as the scene and the memory played itself through her, putting her completely at its mercy.

Damian strained against the muscled arms wrapped around him, and fear trickled down Anya's spine at the realisation that Damian was strong, and rage had only made him stronger, wilder. She adjusted her hold, tried to keep him steady, but Damian twisted in her grip, and something slammed into the centre of her chest like cannonfire, stopping her breath completely.

It was an explosion. The impact of the BOOM echoed in her ears, and she tried to sit up, dizzy from the blow, unable to breathe, her entire body aching with the impact, and she looked up -

Damian. Standing in the middle of a wreck. Everything broken around him. Shattered glass glittering on the floor. Upended chairs and broken furniture. Feathers everywhere.

Red. Dripping from shredded knuckles. Shining black eyes, wild as a storm. Mouth wide open in a soundless scream.

CRACK.

A sound like she had never heard tore through her mind, stole her breath, ripped her soul apart.

Sound exploded from him. His voice shattered the air, warped the gravity around him, splintered time itself, and he poured all of his rage into a hair-raising scream.

It echoed in her ears, it echoed in her mind, it reverberated around the edges of her skull until it was the only thing that existed. It drowned her, filling up her throat and her lungs until all she could feel was pain, all she could hear was pain, all she could breathe was pain -

CRACK.

Anya heaved the breath back into her, so violently that she almost choked from it, and she released her grip on Emile's arm, staggering back from him. Something warm dripped from her nose, metallic on her lips.

Olive green eyes met emerald, and neither looked away from the other. Neither even blinked.

Emile looked just as bad as she felt. Wide, red-rimmed eyes stood out against pallid skin, damp with sweat, and he gasped for breath, his entire body rigid with shock and pain, with an indecipherable expression on his face.

"Forger…" said Emile, and Anya saw the movement of his throat as he swallowed. A droplet of sweat disappeared under his collar.

He took one step back from her. Eyes wide in horror. Looking at her.

"What the fuck was that?"

As Anya returned Emile's stare, every nightmare she had ever had resurfaced in her mind. Flooded her bloodstream. Drowned her.

Icy fear washed over her, freezing her by centimetres.

No.

No no no no no .

This couldn't be - it couldn't be happening -

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't fucking breathe. Tears sprung into her vision as she wheezed, sure that her own body was failing her, and that she was suffocating from the inside out, and all she could see was Emile's horrified expression, focused only on her.

Anya clawed at her own throat, desperately trying to get it to move - or do something - but all she could do was try to breathe and then suddenly the hot tears flowed down her cheeks and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"I -" she gasped, and the words choked her. "I didn't - mean to -"

She didn't mean to. She had never meant to.

But it was still her fault.

Emile's right. They're both right. It's all my -

Anya did the only thing she could do.

She ran.

Sound, smell, even sight, all vanished from her senses as she ran, only relying on her power to guide her away from the crowds of students that emerged in the corridors like spectres. Until she caught her foot on a step, and she tumbled to the floor.

Anya tried to choke back her tears, but it was no use. A cold mist settled over her, freezing her in place, and Anya trembled from it. Her hand found - something - a railing, and she tried to grab onto it, to pull herself up, but all the strength had leaked from her body somehow, and all she could do was watch as her tears dripped onto the wooden floorboards in front of her.

Everything really was her fault. She had never seen Damian in that much pain, never even knew that it could be possible, and he was only in so much pain because of her . Emile and Ewen got hurt because of her. If only she had told Damian the truth earlier, so much earlier, maybe she could have avoided all of… that. For as long as she lived, she would never forget the sound. Emile's memory played in her mind over and over again, the images burning themselves into her mind, and she wanted to be sick.

Her hands shook on the railing as she shoved air back into her lungs, trying and failing to build the strength to just get up.

She should have been more prepared. A good spy would have been -

A good friend would have been more prepared. Would have never done any of it in the first place.

And now…

She had lost her friends. She had tested the limits of Becky's patience, by keeping her in the dark. Even Ewen was wary of her. And Emile…

Oh god.

Anya clapped her hand to her mouth. She really thought she would be sick.

He knows.

The fear in his eyes. The way he staggered back from her, terrified of what he didn't understand. It was everything she had ever been afraid of, for her whole life.

He knows there's something wrong with me. He knows I'm a freak.

The eyes of people she thought she had forgotten resurfaced in her memory.

Roche. Levski. Williams. Klein.

Hatred. Fear. Disgust. It was all in there. It was happening, all over again. Why did she ever think she could escape? Why did she ever think things could be different?

More tears landed on the floorboards, coalescing into a small puddle, reflecting back her own despair and fear-stricken expression.

Damian made her think things could be different. He accepted her, and she ruined everything. He loved her, and she betrayed him. He fought for her, time and time again, and how did she return the favour?

Hollow eyes bored into her soul.

Do you really think you're protecting him?

A sob escaped her, and suddenly, it was as though a dam had burst, drowning her from the inside. Wrecked to her core and heartbroken beyond repair, Anya could do nothing as she cried and cried and cried, unable to hold any of it in.

She deserved this. For being an awful person, and an even worse friend. She deserved to be shunned and rejected. She deserved to feel her pain alone, with no-one to comfort her. She had done this to herself, and had no-one else to blame but herself because

It was

all

her

fault.

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Once again, I am asking you to *sit with the discomfort*, and I am so sorry for all the pain. I promise it's all part of the process.

If it helps, I am also feeling the pain 😭 For me to write strong emotions I also feel them so this arc is for sure taking a lot out of meee

This is definitely going to be a bumpy ride, so please do look after yourselves. Do something to nourish yourself right now, whether that is drinking some water, having a snack, or going for a walk outside.

(If you want to have a fluffy palate cleanser, I very much reccommend my Froger story, mainly because I posted the most recent chapter last week and it was fluffy and emotional as hell)

Next chapter: Saturday 4th May 2024

(In which we return to Damian's POV)