"Some tragedies don't shock you anymore—they just remind you of what you already knew."
That was, more or less, what was on everyone's mind at that moment.
It all felt like déjà vu.
A reflection of Malik's... talk with the past Layla.
Sure, and again, it wasn't as unhinged, but...
It was the same.
Layla's fingers curled, nails pressing into her palm.
She didn't know what to think.
Her husband had once made her father a promise.
A promise that he would never intentionally blink again.
But now?
Now he did.
Yes, technically, he didn't kill himself.
Technically, he didn't ask Black to do it.
But that didn't change the fact that he raised his neck.
That he had offered himself up.
That he had agreed to die.
In his final moments, Malik had called himself a hypocrite.
Layla agreed.
He was a hypocrite.
Not a filthy one... never that, but a hypocrite nevertheless.
Safira would've thought the same.
Should've thought the same.
But she couldn't think at all.
