Cova and Katika found Lili beneath the lone tree. She sat cross legged in the grass, shoes tossed somewhere nearby, elbows resting on her knees. Her eyes glowed faintly red. Both women slowed instinctively as they approached. A few guards lingered nearby, watching, their hands close to weapons.
“She chose the quiet,” Katika murmured.
They watched her for a moment longer. Lili didn’t turn her head, didn’t blink. Her gaze was locked on some thought circling in her head. And though she didn’t move, the tension in her body radiated caution.
“What do you think she’s thinking about?” Katika asked softly.
“Something we probably won’t like,” Cova whispered. Then she stepped forward slowly.
Katika followed and stopped beside the tree with arms crossed, watching Lili’s stillness.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” Cova said gently, “don’t give it all your power.” No response. Cova hesitated, then dropped down beside her, crossing her legs in mirror of her friend’s pose. “You’re scaring the guards, you know,” she tried softly. “One of them nearly wet himself just watching your eyes glow. I think you’ve traumatized half the base also.”
Still nothing. Cova’s warmth cooled. Her patience first turned into concern, then into something sharper. “You don’t get to go ghost on me, Lili,” she said in lower voice. “I know what it looks like when someone’s giving up. And I’ve watched too many good people rot from the inside out thinking no one would notice.”
Lili blinked once. But the slow shift of her gaze from horizon to ground was enough to draw a chill into the air. “I’m not giving up,” she said finally. “I’m just realizing… maybe it never mattered in the first place.”
Cova exhaled. “Don’t do that. You’re the reason half of us are still alive. You’re—dammit, Lili, you’re not allowed to give up without a fight.”
Lili’s lips twitched. “What fight?” she murmured. “Every time I raise the shadows, it’s for someone else. And every time people I trust hurt me without lifting a hand.” She turned her head slightly, just enough for Cova to see the storm in her eyes. “You ever get so tired, Cova?”
Cova reached out, gently placing her hand over Lili’s.
“I just want it all to stop…” Lili whispered. “Is it too much to ask?” She inhaled deeply, but it trembled halfway through. “I know what I was. What I am,” she said, her voice growing thinner. “After all, monsters don’t change and sure as hell they don’t get another chance.” Her eyes burned red again. “So why,” her voice cracked, “am I being lied to? Why am I told I still have one?” She didn’t look at Cova. “Do they think if I play nice long enough, they’ll forget the things I’ve done?” A bitter chuckle caught in her throat. “I don’t want forgiveness. I just want… silence, peace. Maybe even something to quiet the screaming inside.” Her hands curled slightly in the grass beneath her. “Maybe that’s the price. But do I want too much for it just to stop?”
Around Lili, the shadows began to rise brushing past Cova’s boots. Cova didn’t flinch or break her gaze from the Lili crumbling beneath the tree.
“Don’t you dare,” Cova said, softly. “Don’t you dare talk about yourself like that.”
Lili didn’t move, but her shadows twitched. The darkness swirled higher now, brushing against Cova’s coat, her cheek, her chest.
“I don’t give a damn what you were. You think monsters sit under trees asking if they deserve simple things?” Her voice cracked, before it sharpened again. “You’re not broken. You’re bruised. There’s a difference.”
The shadows flexed again, reaching higher, then stilled.
“Yeah, you terrify the hell out of most people.” Her hand reached into the swirling dark, until her fingers found Lili’s. “But I’m not most people.”
Lili didn’t look up. But her fingers closed around Cova’s hand and the shadows began to settle at last.
Cova stayed beside her, still gripping Lili’s hand.
“You know,” Katika finally said, “Notori would agree with everything Cova just said. You think you’re a monster, but he doesn’t.”
Lili flinched. Her breath stilled, eyes flickered crimson again, then dulled to a distant, hollow hue. “He doesn’t see anything,” Lili whispered. “He thinks I’m weak.”
Cova squeezed her hand, but Lili’s fingers began to loosen.
“I could take the rest of the world thinking I’m terrifying. But him…” her voice cracked now, “I so much fucked up even with him…” She dragged her knees closer to her chest, burying her chin in them. “I shouldn’t care this much. But it’s like I finally let myself want something… and the second I did, I broke it.” The shadows began to shift again.
“Lili,” Cova said softly, brushing a strand of red hair back from her friend’s face. “Notori loves you. He’s just…”she hesitated, searching for the right word,“difficult. In that… deeply familiar way you are too.”
A flicker of shame, amusement, exhaustion twitched at the corner of Lili’s mouth.
“Patience isn’t easy for either of you. But that’s the point, isn’t it?” Cova continued. “You need to give it anyway. Be open about what hurts, what you don’t like. Especially when it’s easier to stay silent or violent.”
Lili sighed and leaned her head back against the tree trunk. “Say that to him,” she murmured dryly. “I was about to break his nose.”
Cova huffed a soft laugh, relieved to hear even a sliver of Lili’s old bite return.
“I wouldn’t feel guilty,” Lili muttered.
Katika raised a brow. “You’d feel something and we’d all hear about it for days.”
Lili let out a snort. The tension in her shoulders lessened. The shadows melted.
Cova nudged her gently. “Just… don’t shut down, okay? If he’s blind, you don’t have to be. Talk to him. Before you punch him.”
Lili didn’t answer right away, but something in her eyes softened.
***
The corridor buzzed faintly with voices. Notori wasn’t listening until a name broke through the noise.
“—Lili again. First the training room, then outside under the east tree. They say she nearly lost control—twice.”
That stopped him. He turned slowly, and focused on the pair of two younger recruits whispering near the vending machines who hadn’t seen him yet.
“I heard it was bad. The punching bag was covered with her blood.”
“And under the tree? Cova and Katika mentioned it was close.”
Notori didn’t need to hear more. He walked away before they could spot him.
He found her not far from the courtyard’s edge, sitting beneath the same old tree. The sun was low now, coloring branches on orange. Lili sat unmoved, back leaned against the bark, arms wrapped loosely around her knees. She didn’t look up when he approached.
Notori stopped a few paces away, watching the rise and fall of her shallow breath. He lowered himself slowly to the ground beside her.
Lili broke the silence first: “Third time might be the charm.”
His brow furrowed. “What?”
She shrugged, eyes still on the horizon. “Training room. The tree. You. If something shatters next, maybe it’ll be me.”
Notori looked at her. The usual sharpness was dulled beneath her lashes, and her voice didn’t bite like it used to. It simply floated, hollow and dry.
“I heard,” he said, and those two words carried guilt.
Lili gave a small, bitter chuckle. “Let me guess. They made it sound dramatic.”
“No,” he replied. “They made it sound like you were hurting.”
At that, she only looked at him briefly.
“Isn’t that pathetic?” she murmured.
“No,” he said without hesitation. “It’s not. We all are humans after all.”
“Not what I was raised to be.”
“Then maybe what raised you was wrong.”
Lili’s gaze drifted back to the sky.
Notori shifted closer. “You’re not weak, Lili and you are allowed to feel.”
“I don’t know how to come back from this,” Lili whispered finally.
“You just have to keep walking until it gets easier,” Notori said gently.”
A smile twisted on her lips. “Spoken like someone who doesn’t have blood on their hands.”
“I do,” he replied quietly. “You’ve just never asked how much.”
That caught her. Her gaze flicked sideways, meeting his.
“I won’t ask you to be someone you’re not, Lili. I like you terrifying. But I want to be the one person who doesn’t flinch when the shadows rise.”
Her lip trembled. But then she swallowed it, like she always did, until only the quiet lingered.
Notori reached out slowly with palm up.
Lili stared at it, her fingers twitching like they were remembering how to reach and after a long, trembling breath, she placed her hand in his.
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