CHAPTER 128: pity

Callista’s POV

The news hit me like a physical blow. The air whooshed out of my lungs, leaving a hollow ache in my chest. “Bedridden?” I rasped, a low murmur to myself, the word catching in my throat. “For months?”

The incident. The betrayal that had clawed open a fresh wound every single day. Months? He'd been living a comfortable life while I, branded a killer, had been forced to run to fight for survival out there in the woods. A bitter laugh escaped my lips, a humorless sound that scraped against my raw nerves.

And Dahlia, hearing that she was dead, relief washed over me, cold and unexpected. Relief mingled with a sour aftertaste of something else—disappointment? Regret? Dahlia deserved what she got, but a part of me, the naive part that clung to memories of a lost friendship, felt a dull ache.

But that ache was quickly drowned out by a surge of something far more potent—frustration. Years of hardship, of living like a hunted animal all alone in the woods, all for revenge that mig