[INDENT][COLOR=SLATEGRAY][CENTER][sup][sup][h1][center][img] https://media.architecturaldigest.com/photos/672d4a5b823a46b3d7f713e1/16:9/w_2560%2Cc_limit/GettyImages-1867432941.jpg[/img][/center][b][center][color=black] S T .  D Y M P H N A ‘ S  H O M E[/color]
[color=lightgray]S T .  D Y M P H N A ‘ S  H O M E[/color][/center]
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[sup][sup][h1][b][center][color=black] F O R  W A Y W A R D  Y O U T H S[/color]
[color=lightgray]F O R  W A Y W A R D  Y O U T H S[/color][/center]
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[color=silver][sup][i]Joanie[/i][/sup][/color][/CENTER][/color][/INDENT]
No one spoke on the walk home. Not on the bus Not through the front door. Not up the stairs. It was as if the three of them had agreed, without saying a word, that talking about what they had seen would make it real. So they kept their mouths shut and let the silence swallow them.

No one stirred as they made their way up St Dymphna’s stairwell. Joanie and Mina reached their room first, with Trey peeling off toward his own without a goodbye. He didn’t need to say anything. His face had said enough.

Inside the room, Mina went straight to her bed. She sat on the edge for a long moment, placing on the oven gloves she always slept in. She rubbed her palms together slowly, as if grounding herself, before moving under the covers and turning toward the wall.

Joanie stood in the middle of the room, unsure what to do with her body. Her heart was still racing. Her hands still shook. She could still feel the shaking of the earth in her bones. The way the floor had buckled and the crowd had screamed.

She finally moved on her own bed. She tried distracting herself with her phone, scrolling through one social media app, and then the next. None of it did the trick. It took her a beat to even realise her phone had locked itself from inactivity and her sullen face was staring back at her in the reflection.

Minutes passed. Maybe more.

Mina’s voice finally broke the silence.

“Are you awake?”

Joanie let out a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding. “[color=plum]Yeah.[/color]”

Mina shifted under her blankets, curling in on herself. She looked small. Fragile. Her gloves caught the lamplight, dull and heavy.

She turned where she lay, moving to stare up at the ceiling. “I keep hearing him choking.”

Joanie swallowed. “[color=plum]I know.[/color]”

It’s all she could hear good.

“They wanted her to kill him,” Mina whispered. “They wanted to watch.”

Joanie closed her eyes. The image of the sphere of water flashed behind her eyelids. Cinderjack gasping for air, his life probably flashing before his eyes. The cheers. The blood. The way Rill’s face had gone blank and cold.

She thought of Caleb. Of the way he had looked at her earlier that night. Of the way he had slipped away from her life without explanation.

He had chosen that world over her. The thought hit her like a punch to the chest.

Joanie couldn’t sit on her own bed anymore. She crossed the room and climbed into Mina’s, slipping under the covers behind her. Mina tensed for a moment, then relaxed, careful to keep her gloved hands tucked close to her chest.

Joanie wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her like she had done a hundred times before on nights when Mina’s mutation scared her or the world felt too big. Mina leaned back into her, letting out a shaky breath.

Neither of them spoke.

Joanie stared at the wall, eyes wide open, sleep nowhere near her. Her mind replayed the night in loops. Always ending with the same image of the staring man.

He knew.

She hadn’t told Mina that part. Nor Trey.

She held Mina a little tighter, as if that could keep the world outside from getting in. But she knew it already had.