Chapter 117 Margot’s POV

The hallway felt colder than usual, the kind of chill that made you want to curl up under a thick duvet and hide from the world.

Leo’s arm stayed firm around Cara’s shoulders, holding her upright as she folded into him, gasping through sobs like the air itself was refusing to reach her lungs. I couldn’t stand still. My body wouldn’t let me.

So instead, I paced back and forth, the soles of my shoes slapping the concrete, my fingers knotted together so tightly my knuckles ached.

“We were with her all day yesterday,” Cara cried out to Leo, her voice breaking as she pressed her face into his chest. “And now… now this?!”

Her grief hit like daggers, each word a reminder of how fast everything could change here. I tipped my head back, staring at the stark industrial ceiling above us, the buzzing fluorescent lights casting everything in this harsh, unforgiving glow. My throat closed, the bandages scratching against my skin as I swallowed hard.

“Why her?!” The words tore out of me, ragged and raw, my voice bouncing uselessly down the empty corridor. I didn’t expect an answer. There wasn’t one. Guilt slithered through me anyway, relentless and sharp, as if I should have somehow known. As if I could have done something – anything – to stop this.

To save her. The girl we had only known for a matter of days but who we felt we had faced the world with already… We knew Newman wasn’t a good man. I’d felt it in the way he carried himself, in the way Sarah trailed behind him like a shadow that didn’t dare step into the light.

But this? This was beyond cruel. This was animalistic. The sound of Cara’s sobs echoed against the steel doors lining the hall, each one like a reminder that any of us could be next.

And suddenly… suddenly Coban’s hands around my throat this morning didn’t feel like the worst thing that could have happened to me in a place like this. Not here. Not in a place where one moment you were sitting with a friend at a salon laughing, and the next, she was lying in a cell in a pool of her own blood.

My chest squeezed tight, a tear slipping hot down my cheek as I pulled my arms around myself. Sarah hadn’t said much about how Newman treated her. Not to me, and not to Cara. She’d smiled weakly, she’d carried on, she’d kept her head down. She’d done everything right so far and yet… here she was.

If she had told us something – literally anything – then we would’ve encouraged her to go to someone about it. To talk. To rethink if this project was even worth it for her or not. Because if this was what “rehabilitation” looked like, if this was what change cost, then maybe it wasn’t worth it at all.

But maybe she never believed she had the choice. Maybe none of us did. I watched as guards rushed in and out of the room, Coban remaining inside and the first to try and help her. His bravery had been noted. It was admirable.

He didn’t need to take charge to try and save her, he just did on instinct, and that definitely didn’t go unnoticed… There was purity in him yet… The sound of hurried footsteps snapped me out of my spiraling thoughts as I turned towards the entrance way. Four figures in medical uniforms rushed their way into Block F, two men and two women, each weighed down with equipment bags and a folded stretcher carried between them.

Their rubber soles squeaked against the concrete as they moved with precision, not wasting a single second. “In here!” Leo pointed, as they charged towards us quickly. Finally! Maybe she still has a chance… Cara’s head shot up from Leo’s chest, her tear-streaked face blinking through the haze of panic. I stopped pacing, my hands falling uselessly to my sides as relief and dread tangled up together tight in my chest.

The medics didn’t even acknowledge us as they pushed past straight in. They knew their job, knew their seconds mattered. One woman shouted in the room, “Clear the space!” her voice sharp and authoritative, the kind that made even the guards snap to attention and step out one by one… The stretcher clattered open just outside the cell door, the medics spilling inside with their bags to get to Sarah.

“Sir, step back!” one of the men barked from inside, but Coban’s growl rolled through the air like thunder. “I’ve kept her alive,” we heard as he snapped, his volume lethal. “You don’t touch her until you’re ready with something better than a rag.”

The medic paused to think up a response, before another spoke. “He’s stabilising her. Let him hold the wound until I’ve got the tools ready.”

That seemed to ease the tension as we strained to listen in on the commotion – to hear that Sarah was going to be okay… but those words were far from reality right now… My fingernails bit into my palms where I gripped my own hands together, whispering prayers under my breath though I wasn’t even sure who I was praying to.

Finally, the sound shifted… The clatter of buckles, the scrape of a stretcher being wheeled forward, the urgent but calmer tone of a medic saying, “We’ve got her, let’s move her… steady now.”

And then; Coban finally emerged. He stepped out into the corridor, his shoulders filling the doorframe, his hands and shirt soaked deep red, eyes blazing wild with something I hadn’t seen before. He looked like a man who’d gone twelve rounds in a cage fight and lost everything but his will to keep standing.

Before I even thought it through, my body moved on its own accord towards him. I rushed at him, colliding into his chest hard enough that my head snapped against the curve of his shoulder. My arms wrapped around him without hesitation, clinging tight to the blood-stained fabric, not caring what transferred onto me. “Thank you,” I whispered, my voice shaking as my throat pulsed. “You did your best for her…”

For a heartbeat, his whole body stayed rigid, like he didn’t know what to do with me there. His chest rose hard and fast under my cheek, breathing sharp like he’d just run a mile.

But then slowly, stiffly his arms lifted. They hovered first, then lowered to settle across my back. Heavy. Solid. Protective. Calming. I closed my eyes, relief flooding me even as the chaos still buzzed all around us.

Cara’s muffled sobs carried in the background, guards barked orders to clear the corridor for the stretcher, Leo’s low curses filled the gaps, but all I felt was the steady thud of Coban’s heart under my ear.

He was still trembling faintly, and I realised it wasn’t anger this time. It was fear for Sarah. He had been afraid. Just like us… Just like any other human… But I knew he wouldn’t dare to admit it.