(AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…) EXHAUSTION

Taylor didn’t know what to feel.

Relief should have come first, shouldn’t it? Sophia Hess—Shadow Stalker—was finally in custody. After everything, after months of whispered taunts, pushes, and bruised pride, after the horror of that locker, she was finally somewhere she couldn’t reach her. No more being hunted after school by her cronies, no more flinching at footsteps behind her or wondering which corner hid the next humiliation.

But the relief didn’t feel like she had imagined it would. It didn’t even feel like freedom. It was hollow, like breathing through smoke after the fire had already burned everything down.

When she came to in the hospital, her body feeling heavy and distant—as if it no longer belonged to her—the PRT had already swarmed the floor by then. Sophia had been escorted out under restraints, Taylor remembered the sound of metal clinking as she was led away and the pounding of Armsmaster’s boots as he followed, his jaw tight enough to crack steel.

At the PRT Headquarters, Taylor had answered the questions about the event that transpired because that was what you did. Because saying no felt like tempting something worse. But each answer scraped at her throat, and every word brought back the smell of antiseptic, the panic caused by pain, and the bone-deep exhaustion of dying over and over again.

By the time she found herself in front of Director Emily Piggot, she felt like she’d already lived this conversation ten times before.

Piggot was not what Taylor had expected. She was broad-shouldered, her uniform straining slightly at the seams, and her eyes carried the look of someone who didn’t waste time pretending to be anything but busy. There was no sympathy there, only assessment, the sort of gaze that measured risk and damage rather than pain and filed it into neat, manageable reports.

Even so, she hadn’t pressed too hard.

“You’ve been through enough for one night,” Piggot said, voice clipped but not unkind. “We’ll contact you and your father if we need further statements. Armsmaster’s report will cover most of what happened.”

Taylor nodded, her voice failing her. She hadn’t realized until then how much she wanted someone—anyone—to simply tell her she could go.

When she stepped out of Piggot’s office, her dad was waiting in the corridor.

He looked older than he had that morning, the lines around his mouth deeper and his hair messier, as if the hours had stripped years off him. But the second he saw her, the anger and worry in his eyes softened into a wordless relief. He crossed the space between them in three quick steps and wrapped her in his arms, pulling her close.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Taylor didn’t have to hold herself upright. She let herself sag into him, the tension bleeding out of her muscles.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, his voice rough. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Her eyes burned, but no tears came. She didn’t have the energy for such. The tears would come later, maybe, when her mind stopped spinning. For now, though, she just clung to him, breathing him in—the faint scent of laundry detergent and something that was just home—and let the silence settle between them.

He carried her through the hallways of the PRT HQ, past doors that hissed open automatically, and past capes and officers who paused to stare. Some faces showed pity, others curiosity, and a few carried guilt. Taylor ignored them all.

By the time they reached the car, her muscles ached with fatigue. Her head lolled against her father’s shoulder as the night blurred past the windows in streaks of orange and blue.

She should have felt safe now. She should have felt like it was finally over.

But as the car moved along the roads toward home, the weight of everything in her chest only grew heavier. The PRT had taken Sophia away, but they couldn’t take away the memories of the preceding events. They couldn’t erase the stench of antiseptic and blood from her mind, or the fact that it had taken this much for someone to finally help her.

After all, Taylor had died many times.

If not for the strange, cruel curse that kept pulling her back, she would have died alone and terrified in that hospital room, the world narrowing to the sound of her own ragged breaths. Sophia would have walked away free, maybe even celebrated as a hero who had survived a supposed attack. She would have had all the time in the world to twist the story into something neat and believable, something that made Taylor’s death look like a mistake, or worse, like it had been deserved.

Taylor pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window and tried to convince herself that this time, it was over. That she could sleep and wake up tomorrow in a world that didn't loop upon her death.

But deep down, she wasn’t sure she believed it.

When they finally reached the house, her father didn’t say a word. He just carried her up the steps, the front door clicking shut behind them, and laid her gently on her bed in her room. He brushed a strand of hair from her face with the same care he’d shown when she was little, and she found herself missing his touch the moment he moved away.

“Get some rest,” he murmured softly.

Taylor tried to smile, but it barely reached her eyes. So she whispered something that might have been a thank-you, though she couldn’t tell what she meant by it, or even if it was indeed what she thought it was.

He lingered for a moment, then turned off the light and closed the door. Darkness filled the room, and closing her eyes, Taylor finally allowed the exhaustion to swallow her.