Chapter Twenty-One – The Shatter
Rain lashed the glass.
The Leclair mansion, once echoing with chatter, was dead silent. Outside, the guests had gone to sleep, their laughter now a distant memory. The corridors stood hollow and dim, the flicker of gas lamps casting shadows that danced like ghosts.
Somewhere down the west hall, a clock struck midnight. Each chime a warning.
Nuria stood in front of the tall mirror in their guest room, her hands gently folded across her lower stomach. Her eyes, heavy and red, stared back.
Asa hadn't returned since dinner. The last she saw of him, he'd disappeared down the stone stairwell after brushing past Milo. The shift in him these past days hadn't just frightened her—it was tearing her apart.
The mirror fogged slightly as her breath trembled.
A click.
The door opened.
She turned. He was there. Asa.
His shirt clung to his frame, damp from rain. Hair messy, curls falling over his eyes. And yet, there was something colder than the storm outside lingering in his gaze.
He closed the door behind him slowly.
"Asa," she said gently.
He didn't respond.
She took a step forward. "You've been gone all day. Where were you?"
Nothing.
His hands hung at his sides. She noticed they trembled. Not from cold. From something deeper.
"Asa, talk to me," she said, more firmly now. "If this is about what I said—you know I didn't mean to hurt you. You know I would never—"
"I saw it."
The words were gravel, dragged from a pit.
"Saw what?"
He finally met her eyes.
"The gun."
Nuria paled.
What gun?
"Don't play dumb. That night. I saw your face in the dark. I saw you point it."
She shook her head and stared at Asa in confusion. "No, Asa. You must be mistaking me for someone else. What are you saying? I don't understand what you mean."
"I said don't play dumb!" Asa screamed.
Nuria stepped back instinctively.
"Asa, stop. You're scaring me."
"Scaring you?" he echoed. "Nuria, come on—let's stop pretending now."
Then, as if coming to a sudden realization, he said, "Or don't tell me… you forgot what you did to my dad that night, didn't you?"
Nuria just stared at him, refusing to let the tears in her eyes fall.
"I can't believe this. You actually did forget," Asa said calmly—but one could feel the storm behind those words.
"While I've had to live every single day remembering what happened that night, over and over and…
Over!!!
Again, and again!!"
Nuria flinched.
"You get to live freely, without remembering it?"
He laughed bitterly.
"Then you know what?" he said, smiling. "Let me remind you. Thirteen years ago, I hid under a broken table in my own home, which was supposed to be peaceful—but then you and your dad came in and killed my whole family in front of me."
"You know what? I get it. You were just a child and all. But you could have chosen not to. He was your dad, he wouldn't have killed you, he wouldn't have… but yet you held the gun up. I saw you.
I SAW YOU!!" Asa's voice cracked, tears falling from his eyes.
At that very moment, it suddenly hit Nuria.
The nightmare she thought she'd had when she saw that photo in Asa's penthouse suddenly fit in perfectly—with a memory.
Memories.
Memories that her childhood self had worked so hard to bury came flooding in like a dam had broken in her mind. The tears she'd been trying so hard to hold back started falling on their own accord.
"No," she heard herself say. "That's not—you didn't see—I didn't mean to—"
"Stop."
He stepped forward.
"Remember now?"
"You don't get to tell me what I saw. You don't get to smile at me and touch me and lie to me."
She backed into the side of the bed. "Please… you're scaring me."
His breath shuddered out of him. His face was twisted, torn between rage and sorrow. He looked like a boy in the skin of a man—haunted, shaking.
"Do you know what it's like to dream of someone every night and not know if you want to hold them or bury them?"
She felt tears sting her eyes. "I never hurt your father, Asa. I never did."
But he was already in front of her.
His hands came to her arms, gripping—too tightly.
She flinched. "You're hurting me—"
He shook his head. Whispered, "Why couldn't you have been the one to kill my dad? Why did you come back into my life only to rip it apart again?"
And then his hands moved to her neck.
It happened like breath. One second a sob in his throat—the next, his fingers pressing against her skin.
"I should have done this long ago. But I was foolish enough to think I could break you before wiping you out of this world, like he said I should."
"I should have listened to him. And ended you."
She gasped, eyes wide, stumbling back into a mirror. Glass shivered in its frame.
His eyes were wild now. Lost.
"I loved you," he whispered. "I love you. But I can't think anymore. I hear him. Every night. And he says you're the reason."
Nuria clawed at his wrists. Her vision blurred. "Asa—stop—please—"
His grip wavered.
And suddenly—as if a glass had shattered in his head—
His eyes widened.
And suddenly he let go, like touching her burned his hands.
She coughed, gasped, stumbled away—but not far.
He collapsed to the ground.
Just dropped, like a puppet cut from its strings.
His hands clutched at his hair. He began to sob.
No noise at first.
Then it tore from him.
A sound so guttural it didn't sound human.
He rocked on his knees, head pressed to the wooden floor, hands trembling.
"I can't… I can't do this… I can't lose them again… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
Nuria, coughing, tears streaking down her face, stood shaking.
She moved to the door.
Her hand reached for the knob.
He looked up.
Not angry now. Not even sad.
Just empty.
"Please don't go," he whispered.
She turned the knob.
Opened the door.
But she didn't step through it.
She looked back.
Saw him kneeling. Breaking. Sobbing into his palms like a child.
She wanted to run. To protect her baby. To protect herself.
But her heart cracked at the sight of him.
Even now.
She walked to him. Slow. Kneeling too. Not too close. Just enough.
She whispered, "You need help, Asa."
He didn't move.
She rose again.
This time, she walked through the door.
Down the hall.
Milo, standing outside, caught her by the arm. He saw her face, saw her neck, and something in him shifted.
"We're leaving," she said.
Milo nodded.
In the room behind them, Asa wept.
Alone.