Chapter 94 Margot’s POV

“Coban…” I rasped, my voice shredded from the pain still searing at my throat.

It hurt to speak, but I needed to say something, needed to reach him before he tore himself apart right before me.

“Don’t!” he hissed, his voice as sharp as glass.

His head shook violently, his fingers tangling up into his hair, tugging so hard that I thought he might rip the strands free from his damn scalp!

“I’ve fucked up, I know I did!” His words came out strangled, laced with fury.

The heat of his words wasn’t aimed my way, but it was still terrifying to witness the turmoil storming behind his eyes.

He was disappointed in himself.

I forced myself to sit up on the bed, my body trembling, one hand clutching at my raw throat, the other pressed flat for balance.

My chest heaved in unsteady gasps. My lungs still burned, bruised from where his grip had stolen every ounce of oxygen from me.

But even through the fear, my eyes stayed on him.

Because this wasn’t the cold, controlled man I’d been learning to survive this entire week…

This was someone else. Someone cracked open and bleeding in ways I didn’t yet understand.

But I knew there was more to him…

He paced back and forth in the cell like a caged animal, slamming his fist once again against the hard concrete wall as if the sting of pain might drown out whatever was roaring in his head. His knuckles left a smear of red, but he didn’t even flinch at it.

“I swore I wouldn’t…” His words cut off, his jaw locking as though the rest were too dangerous for him to admit.

I swallowed painfully, my throat burning in protest, but forced the words out anyway. “You… weren’t yourself.”

That snapped his gaze directly toward me. Pitch black eyes, still wild with the remnants of his nightmare, pinning me where I sat.

For a moment, I wondered if I’d made a mistake by speaking out at all, by trying to reason with him…

My heart rattled against my ribs so hard I thought it might break them.

“I almost killed you,” he said flatly, voice low, trembling at the edges. His chest heaved like he’d just run for miles. “Don’t make excuses for me, Margot. Don’t do that!”

Hearing my full name was always a disappointment, but it showed how serious he was in any given moment.

The honesty in his tone made my insides twist. He wasn’t denying it, wasn’t brushing it off, wasn’t making excuses.

He was owning it, even though the weight of what he had just done was now crushing him…

“But you didn’t,” I whispered, even though my tender throat pulsed as a reminder of how close he had gotten. I forced myself to sit up taller, to not look so small. “You stopped…”

His laugh came out humorless and bitter. “Stopped? Yes, because I saw your face turning fucking purple beneath me, Margot. Because I heard you choking out on me.” He turned from me suddenly, dragging both hands down his face, his voice breaking out in a loud groan. “I don’t know who I am when I close my eyes at night. I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do to you next. I had zero control, don’t you fucking understand that? Sometimes I just black out!”

His words should have made me recoil. Should have made me press myself into the farthest corner of this cell and vow never to sleep anywhere near him again.

But instead… something else filled my chest…

Pity maybe? Or understanding?

I’d seen a glimpse of something in him that terrified me and yet explained so much all at the same time – the bruises that had been left on his tortured soul, the venom in his blood that wasn’t entirely any fault of his own.

“What did you dream about, Coban?” I whispered quietly, my fingers still trembling but the curiosity towering above my better judgment.

“What happened to you?” I pressed on, my brows creasing with concern for what he had seen and done throughout his life.

He froze.

His back was to me, his shoulders rising and falling once, twice, like the question itself was a blade pressed against his spine threatening to kill him.

Silence stretched out so long I thought maybe he wouldn’t answer me at all, maybe he’d shut down completely and ice me out…

Before finally, his voice came, hoarse and jagged.

“My father.”

The words made me still. A chill crawled over my skin at the venom in his voice when he said the word ‘father’.

His father? The man who I’d heard guards whisper about? The man who could pull strings from outside of this place? A man who seemingly stood above Coban, being the only one on this entire earth seeming to hold some sort of control over him?

“Did your father hurt you too?” I found myself breathless, feeling suddenly choked all over again by the tension filling the room.

He hadn’t ever mentioned it, even when he had poked at me about my own father, forcing me to tell him the truth about who left the bruise on my cheek on our first day here…

He knew the bare minimum that my father was a bastard, the reason I ran off to find a better life, but even at that, he didn’t once give away that he too had maybe experienced similar treatment?

“That’s none of your fucking business, is it?!” He suddenly turned, eyes ablaze yet again, catching me off guard as I sucked in a breath.

It was a topic he obviously wasn’t ready to discuss, and I wouldn’t need to be told twice either.

“I’m sorry… I just…” I tried to find the right words to suit, but none did.

“You just what? D’you think that you’re my fucking therapist now?! As if this would help to fix me?! I just nearly killed you! Why aren’t you locked in the bathroom crying about it like you usually would?! Stop fucking pushing me!” He began to rage, his tone growing louder, his temper flaring once again as his hands flailed around.

He was too on edge.

Too hard to predict.

But amongst his aggression, I couldn’t take my eyes off the dripping blood coating his right hand and fingers…

It looked bad…

But worst of all, he didn’t even seem bothered by it…

“Coban… your hand is…” I spoke carefully, causing him to still all movements, stopping to stare dead through me.

“Is there something fucking wrong with you?!” He snapped, as my jaw fell slack.

“N–No, it’s just… it looks bad and…” I stuttered, held under his intense gaze.

“Margot…” he spoke slowly, as my mouth went dry.

“Y–Yes?” I whispered, as he lifted his hand to point towards the door.

“Go sit in the bathroom until I tell you to come out, I’m about to lose my fucking shit with you,” he stated carefully, his tone even.

And so I did exactly that, scrambling from the bed and racing for the door…