***
{Inside The Projection}
The alley was quiet, the city's noise distant.
Malik leaned against the wall, his back hitting the rough stone harder than he meant to, but he didn't care.
He let his head fall back, exhaling slow, pressing his fingers to his temples.
A headache was already creeping in, throbbing right behind his eyes.
He shouldn't have come.
He had known...
He had known.
There wasn't a single moment in his life where things had gone smoothly, where something hadn't twisted, snapped, gone sideways the second he let himself hope that maybe, just maybe, this time would be different.
But of course, it wasn't.
It never was.
Because this was his life.
And, well... this was Safira.
That was what he knew her as.
Fire and humor, love and rage, only now so tangled up that he couldn't tell which was which.
That same wild energy had drawn him in once. Now? It exhausted him.
Malik dragged a hand down his face a second time, forcing himself to breathe slow.
