you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody
Flora feels Jack’s words like a slap, sharp and bitter-cold, each syllable stinging more fiercely than the frost that splinters on the boards between them. She flinches, barely—just a tightening around her eyes, a flicker of pain crossing her face like sunlight fractured through troubled water—but it hurts far deeper than she'd ever admit. Her pulse races unsteadily, blood roaring in her ears as her heart struggles to stay afloat beneath the deluge of his accusations.
"And you were ready to do exactly the same thing!" she fires back. "What, did you forget the part where you told me you wanted to be the unmovable thorn in their side? Did you think that would magically leave me safe?" Her eyes are glassy, but she refuses to let the tears fall, blinking furiously as she lifts her chin, meeting his gaze squarely despite the ache lodged tight behind her ribs. "You’re a fool if you think you weren’t already a target, Jack," she says, voice low but sharp-edged, frustration and desperation churning through her words like waves battering against rocks. "The minute you decided to stand up and fight back, you put us both at risk."
She takes another breath, softer now, eyes fierce yet pleading, the ocean inside her mind roiling—storm waves breaking against tender blooms, petals scattering in foam. "And I tried to talk to you about my plans. You’re the one who told me it was a conversation better suited for Hadama. You’re the one who said there was no future if we all ended up brainwashed by the Family anyway. So don’t you dare call what I've done a prison, not when the alternative is watching everyone we love—watching Torchline—fall to that fucking plague."
Flora’s voice trembles, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she holds his stare, daring him to deny her words. Her anger is bright, blistering, but beneath it all swirls a current of fear—fear of losing him, fear of having already lost him—anchored only by her determination not to back down.
"And you were ready to do exactly the same thing!" she fires back. "What, did you forget the part where you told me you wanted to be the unmovable thorn in their side? Did you think that would magically leave me safe?" Her eyes are glassy, but she refuses to let the tears fall, blinking furiously as she lifts her chin, meeting his gaze squarely despite the ache lodged tight behind her ribs. "You’re a fool if you think you weren’t already a target, Jack," she says, voice low but sharp-edged, frustration and desperation churning through her words like waves battering against rocks. "The minute you decided to stand up and fight back, you put us both at risk."
She takes another breath, softer now, eyes fierce yet pleading, the ocean inside her mind roiling—storm waves breaking against tender blooms, petals scattering in foam. "And I tried to talk to you about my plans. You’re the one who told me it was a conversation better suited for Hadama. You’re the one who said there was no future if we all ended up brainwashed by the Family anyway. So don’t you dare call what I've done a prison, not when the alternative is watching everyone we love—watching Torchline—fall to that fucking plague."
Flora’s voice trembles, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she holds his stare, daring him to deny her words. Her anger is bright, blistering, but beneath it all swirls a current of fear—fear of losing him, fear of having already lost him—anchored only by her determination not to back down.
