Third-person POV
Zephyra was out the second her head hit the pillow. It wasn't just sleep—it was the kind of deep, dreamless unconsciousness that only came after pure exhaustion. Her entire body ached, the bruises from her fight still pulsing with dull pain, but none of it mattered. The moment she let herself sink into the mattress, she was gone.
Until she wasn't.
A noise—loud, sharp, cutting through the silence like a knife.
At first, her sluggish mind tried to ignore it. 'Just the city,' she told herself. To her, it was just the usual late-night chaos outside. Since she lived on the rural edge of town, it was normal for her to think that it was maybe a trash can tipping over, or maybe some drunk stumbling home, but then it happened again.
A muffled crash. Something—or someone—slamming into something hard, and then, a scream.
Her mother's scream.
Zephyra's eyes snapped open as her breath caught in her throat.
The exhaustion vanished in an instant, replaced by a rush of panic and fury. The lingering pain in her body? Irrelevant. The moment she registered her mother's voice, she was already moving.
She shoved the blankets aside and darted out of her room, her bare feet silent against the cold floor. The hallway light was extremely dim, but she didn't need light to know what she was about to see.
She had seen it before.
Her father stood in the middle of the living room, towering over her mother, and even from across the room, Zephyra could smell the alcohol on him—thick, sour, and suffocating. His hand was still raised, mid-swing, his knuckles already smeared with red.
Her mother's blood.
Zephyra felt something in her chest go ice-cold. "What the hell are you doing here?!" she snapped, her voice sharp and furious as she stormed toward him.
Slowly, lazily, he turned, and then, he smiled. That same infuriating smirk. Like none of this mattered. Like it was all just some kind of joke.
It had been months since she'd last seen him. The last she heard, he'd been thrown in jail, and she had hoped—prayed—that he'd stay there, but here he was. Just like always.
Her mother was curled up against the couch, cradling her arm with her lip split open. Blood had already dried at the corner of her mouth, but what made Zephyra's rage spike wasn't the injury—it was the look in her mother's eyes. The trembling fear. The kind of fear that came from knowing this wasn't over.
Zephyra's hands curled into fists at her sides, her nails digging into her palms so hard it hurt.
Across the room, her father rolled his shoulders like he was shaking off nothing more than a mild inconvenience. "Came to see you," he said, his voice slow. "But your stupid mother wouldn't let me in the easy way. So, I had to get a little… persuasive."
Zephyra crouched beside her mother, forcing herself to soften for just a second. "Are you okay?" she asked, her voice tight.
Her mother nodded too quickly, her hands still trembling. "I—I'm fine," she whispered, but Zephyra knew that she wasn't, and that was all it took.
She shot to her feet, stepping in front of her mother like a shield. "Get out," she snarled, her voice serious and unwavering. "Now."
Her father didn't move. He didn't even blink.
Instead, he laughed. A deep, amused chuckle, like she had just told the funniest joke in the world.
"Feisty as ever, huh?" he mused, shoving his hands into his pockets like he had all the time in the world. "You always were a stubborn little brat."
Zephyra held her ground, her breathing steady despite the way anger burned through her veins. "I said get out," she repeated, quieter this time.
He cocked his head, his smirk still in place. "Oh, I'll leave," he said easily. "But if you want me gone so bad, why don't you hand over that money from your fight last night?"
Zephyra went rigid.
His smirk widened. He had her now, and he knew it. "Yeah," he murmured, eyes glinting with satisfaction. "I know about it, so for your own sake, don't bother lying."
Of course, he knew. He always knew. Somehow, no matter how hard she tried to stay out of his reach, he found a way to keep tabs on her. Not because he cared, or because she mattered to him.
Just because he wanted to take.
She let out a bitter scoff. "You show up after months, and the first thing you ask for is money?"
His grin stretched wider. "Not the first thing," he corrected, as if that mattered. "I asked to see you first. The money's just a bonus."
Her vision blurred with rage.
It was the same cycle, same story with her father barging in uninvited and fists flying. Her mother, always the one suffering first, and she, standing in the middle, bracing for the next blow.
Her fists clenched tighter.
"You're not getting a single damn cent from me," Zephyra spat.
The smirk vanished from her father's face in an instant. One second, he was grinning like this was some game, and the next, his expression darkened, all amusement draining away like someone had flipped a switch.
"Is that so?" he muttered, stepping closer.
Zephyra didn't move; she didn't flinch. She refused to be afraid of him.
"Yeah," she said, meeting his gaze head-on, her defiance burning through the pain in her body. "That's so."
For a moment, he just stared at her, exhaling sharply like he was trying to rein in whatever ugly thing was twisting inside him, and then he shook his head.
"You really don't learn, do you?" His voice was low now, colder.
Zephyra braced herself. If he so much as lifted a finger toward her, she wouldn't hesitate. She'd been on the receiving end of his violence before—too many times to count, but she wasn't a scared little kid anymore.
"I said get out," she repeated, her voice steady. "And don't come back."
That was it. That was the moment his expression changed completely, his anger shifting into something more dangerous, something unpredictable.
"You must really think you're something now, huh?" he sneered, his voice dripping with condescension. "Just because you're some low-grade street fighter, you think you can take me?"
Zephyra's nails dug into her palms, but she stayed still, keeping her breathing even. She had learned a long time ago—fear only made him worse, and then, before she could react—
Pain.
Blinding, searing pain exploded across her cheek as his fist collided with her face. The impact was brutal, sending her staggering backward before her body hit the couch with enough force to rattle her bones. The world tilted for a second, her vision flashing white.
Her mother's scream cut through the haze.
"Jonas!" she cried, scrambling forward. "Don't hit your own daughter!"
Jonas barely even acknowledged her. He shoved her aside like she was an afterthought, barely sparing her a glance as she stumbled into the wall, hands shaking as she caught herself.
Zephyra groaned, her breath ragged as she pressed a hand to her throbbing cheek. A sharp, metallic taste filled her mouth—blood. She must have bitten the inside of her cheek on impact.
Jonas stood over her now; his face was twisted in barely restrained fury.
"Give me the damn money," he snapped. "Or I swear to God, Zephy, you're going to regret it."
Zephyra wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, leveling him with a look of pure defiance. "I don't have any money."
His eyes narrowed. "You're lying."
"I'm not," she bit back. "You wasted your time coming here. I lost my fight last night, and I didn't earn a damn dime."
The second the words left her mouth, she knew that she had just made a mistake.
Jonas' expression shifted, darkening into something volatile, something deadly, and this time, she knew—he wasn't just going to walk away.
His lip curled in disgust, and he took a slow step forward. "You mean to tell me," he said, dragging out each word, "that you got your ass beat again?"
Zephyra didn't answer, and his hand snapped across her face before she even saw it coming. A sharp sound echoed through the room, the force of the slap whipping her head to the side.
"Useless," he spat. "You're nothing but a worthless, incompetent little brat."
Zephyra clenched her teeth, forcing herself to swallow the pain, but before she could move, before she could even lift her head, her mother threw herself between them.
"Jonas, please!" she cried, her voice raw, desperate. She grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back. "She's your daughter! Please stop this!"
Jonas let out a frustrated breath, and then he turned on her instead. Without hesitation, without even a flicker of remorse, he drove his fist into her ribs.
The sound—the awful impact—was worse than the scream that followed. Zephyra's mother crumpled instantly, her body collapsing on the floor, her head slamming the edge of the table as she went down.
A sickening silence followed, and Zephyra's blood ran cold.
"Mom," she whispered, barely recognizing her own voice.
She tried to move, tried to crawl toward her, but before she could, Jonas grabbed her by the throat, and her breath was cut off instantly.
His grip was strong, his fingers digging into the sides of her neck with force.
"You don't get to be a failure, you brat," he growled, his face inches from hers. His breath reeked of whiskey and rage. "You don't get to be useless."
Zephyra's hands flew to his wrists, nails sinking into his skin as she fought against him, but he was strong. Stronger than she had remembered.
Her lungs screamed for air, her vision blurred, and her limbs weakened. This was different.
He had hit her, thrown her, and bruised her, but this—this was something else. This was him trying to end her.
Her chest burned, her body thrashed on instinct, but her strength was slipping fast, and the room was fading.
Was this it?
Was this how it ended?
Was she going to die here, in this shitty apartment, at the hands of a man who had never once given a damn about her?
Then, suddenly—she heard a voice, a voice that did not belong here.
"Who the hell had the audacity to summon me?"
The air in the room shifted, and Jonas' grip faltered. His fingers loosened just enough for Zephyra to suck in a desperate breath.
He turned his head sharply, and Zephyra, barely conscious, forced her gaze to follow his, but what she saw nearly made her forget the pain.
Astraea stood in the far corner of the room, her presence impossibly out of place in her battered living room. She was dressed the same as before, but something was different now.
Her eyes. They weren't the color they had been before. They were red, and not just red—blood red. They were also glowing and radiating an energy that felt wrong, unnatural.
Zephyra's breath hitched.
Jonas took a slow step back, his grip on her throat fully gone now, and his entire body shifting as he turned to face Astraea.
His bravado cracked, just slightly. "Who the fuck are you?" he barked.
Astraea tilted her head, her glowing eyes locking on Zephyra with something that wasn't concern. Annoyance, maybe. Mild interest at best.
"You summoned me?" she muttered, more to herself than to anyone else, her tone dry and laced with impatience.
Then, after a pause, she scoffed.
"What a joke."