SERAPHINA’S POV
I didn’t rember leaving the Lockwood Estate.
One minute, I was standing in the library, the air thick with dust and lies, my mother’s words ricocheting inside my skull like mini bullets.
The next thing I knew, I was outside, my feet pounding against the stone steps, moving fast, as if distance alone could keep those words from sinking deeper.
Ordinary.
Unremarkable.
Worse, if anything.
I was in no right mind to drive, so I left my car behind, stord down the long driveway, and through the gates.
The rain had begun as a thin mist, barely a whisper against my skin, but with every passing second, it grew heavier, colder, soaking through my clothes, until the fabric clung to like a second skin.
I welcod it.
The biting cold hurt less than the ache clawing through my chest.
I didn’t know how long I walked, only that every step grew heavier under the weight of thirty years.
Years spent wondering why I was never enough.
Why every door I tried to open as a child had been locked.
Why every spark of potential I showed was smothered before it had a chance to burn.
Every attempt at sothing new—shut down.
Every interest—redirected.
Every dream—dismissed.
How many tis had I blad myself?
Too quiet.
Too clumsy.
Too slow.
Not charming enough.
Not talented enough.
Not strong enough.
Not good enough.
Just when I was moving on, healing, when I thought that my old wounds were scarred over, they cracked open now, bleeding raw, and all my childhood resentnts ca bubbling to the surface.
All those years of thinking I was the problem—and now to learn it was because of so ridiculous prophecy so stranger told my parents before I could even walk?
If it weren’t so cruel, it might’ve been absurdly funny.
I laughed anyway, a hoarse, ugly sound that dissolved into the rain.
A fortune-teller had dictated my entire life.
And my parents went along with it. Used it as a basis to treat as an afterthought.
If it were Daniel, and soone prophesied that he was destined to live an ordinary life, would I love him any less?
Would I undermine him? Hold him back?
Never.
I would die before doing that to him.
If my son wanted to reach for the stars, I would lift him high on my shoulders. If he wanted to try sothing hard, I would help him practice. If he failed, I’d tell him we could try again tomorrow.
That was love.
Encouragent.
Support.
Faith.
Not whatever the hell my parents had given .
I bit back another trembling breath as I rounded a familiar corner.
Sohow, without realizing it, I had walked straight to Daniel’s favorite park.
I stepped onto the gravel, my shoes crunching softly.
The air slled like wet earth, iron from the swings and slides, and faint sweetness from the tiny wildflowers that blood around the periter.
The playground had been abandoned in the storm. Water collected in small puddles at the base of the slide. The sandbox had turned to mud. The bright paint on the climbing bars looked more muted under the gray sky.
But it still felt like ho—a fragile comfort pressed against the storm inside .
I walked deeper in, rain dripping from my hair down the back of my neck and soaking my clothes. My fingers trembled as I tucked damp strands behind my ears.
As I reached the swings, mories flickered—small, scattered monts from years ago.
The reason I brought Daniel here in the first place was that this was where my parents used to bring my siblings and I a long ti ago.
My mories themselves were nothing special—no less painful than the rest of my childhood—but returning with Daniel, creating new, better monts, had been my way of overwriting the old ones.
But now, those old mories broke through as sharp and painful as my bleeding wounds.
Celeste laughing as she spun in circles, my mother clapping proudly, as if she were performing perfect pirouettes.
Ethan landing a perfect one-handed cartwheel, my father cheering loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.
Their laughter and cheers. Always for them—the siblings that were destined for greatness.
But then...sothing else.
A large, work-rough hand clutching mine.
A warm blanket tucked around my shoulders.
A voice—not unkind—murmuring, ‘It’s all right, Sera. Try again.’
I blinked, trying to hold on to the images, but they slipped away, dissolving before I could grasp them.
Were they even real?
Had they cared, even a little?
Or was I inventing kindness where none had existed?
Maybe my mind was trying to salvage sothing—anything—good from a childhood where I had always been the shadow while Celeste and Ethan were the sun.
My throat tightened.
It was just like that dream with my father. Maybe I’d been so starved for affection that the tiniest crumbs felt like feasts in hindsight.
Even if they’d managed to scramble so modicum of love for , it was nothing compared to the adoration and affection they’d showered my siblings with.
I sank slowly onto the nearest swing, the old tal chains creaking in protest. Water dripped from them in steady streams, splashing against my wrists.
I gripped the cold chains and let my head hang as the rain soaked through every layer of clothing. My chest rose and fell in short, uneven breaths, the pain sitting heavy beneath my sternum.
All this ti, I had convinced myself that I was healing; I was moving on.
That the past no longer held power over .
That I had built a new life and reinvented the aning of family for .
But today...
It didn’t matter that I was now stronger beyond my wildest dreams. It didn’t matter that I was a fucking LST Champion.
Today it felt like my childhood, cruel and rciless, had reached up from the grave, wrapped cold, unforgiving fingers around my throat, and yanked straight back under, drowning out every bit of light I’d fought to build.
I didn’t know how long I sat there on the swing. Minutes. Hours. It all blurred together and washed away with the storm.
I only knew the world had bled into gray, my fingers numb, and sowhere along the way, my tears, hot and helpless, blended into the cold, relentless rain until I couldn’t tell one from the other.
Then—
A shadow moved in front of .
I didn’t look up. I was too exhausted, too emptied out to care who had wandered into my little storm.
But when the rain abruptly stopped pounding on my head and shoulders, when the sound shifted and softened, when the space around suddenly ward...
I finally lifted my gaze.
And froze.
Kieran stood before .
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