A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 44: Chasing Ghosts

James was unraveling.

He could feel it in the way his hands shook, in the way his breath came uneven, in the way his pulse hammered violently against his ribs. He had spent weeks watching her drift, disappear, slip through the cracks of something he hadn't even realised was fragile. He had spent weeks trying to reach her, and now that he had her here, now that there was nowhere for her to run, she was still slipping.

His hands shot out, grabbing both her arms at her sides, forcing her to stay in place. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to anchor her, to hold her here with him.

"What the hell happened to you over the break?" he demanded, voice low, desperate.

She didn't flinch. Didn't move.

She only looked at him.

James felt his breath hitch.

"One week," he said, shaking his head. "You were in that wretched estate for one bloody week, Ana. What could have possibly—" He broke off, exhaling sharply. His grip tightened. "I just saw you. Before Yule. You were fine. You were—" He swallowed. "You were you. And now—"

He gestured wildly, unable to even put into words what he was seeing, what he had been seeing for weeks.

Now, she was nothing.

A ghost of herself, haunting the castle, haunting him.

Anastasia blinked, slow and deliberate. Then, with the same dull, passive tone, she said, "Don't you read the news, James?"

His stomach dropped.

"Nothing happened to me," she continued, her voice absent of anything resembling emotion. "I happened to others."

James froze.

She wasn't smiling. She wasn't trying to push him away, wasn't saying it to get a rise out of him, to disgust him the way she had in the past.

She just said it. Matter-of-factly.

Like it was the truth.

Like it wasn't tearing her apart from the inside out.

James' jaw clenched so tight it hurt. "What did Riddle do?"

"Nothing I didn't let happen."

The words were like a blade, sliding between his ribs, sharp and final.

She still wasn't reacting. Not to him, not to the way his grip on her arms tightened, not to the way he was begging her—fucking begging her—to feel something.

He searched her face, begging for something—anything—a flinch, a twitch, a spark of life, of fight.

But she only looked at him.

Empty.

And James, for the first time, truly panicked.

His grip tightened further, his breath quickening, his mind screaming at him to do something, to shake her, to snap her out of this—out of whatever the hell this was.

"Ana," he muttered, his voice breaking slightly. "Just... Just talk to me."

She didn't respond.

Didn't fight him.

Didn't do anything.

Instead, she slowly reached up, her cold fingers wrapping around his wrists, her touch featherlight.

She didn't yank herself free. Didn't resist. She just... held onto him.

And then, with quiet certainty, she pulled his hands away.

"I don't know what you want from me, James," she said, her voice even, steady. "But I know I can't offer it."

James stared at her, his breath coming too fast, his hands still curled into fists at his sides.

She let go of him.

Brushed past him.

James stood there, still reeling, his hands balled into fists at his sides, his heart pounding.

Anastasia's hand was already on the door, already slipping away from him like water through his fingers, already vanishing into that hollow version of herself he barely recognised.

And he couldn't—wouldn't—let it end like this.

"Don't you know me by now?" His voice was rough, something raw scraping at the edges of his throat. "I'm not gonna leave you alone."

She stilled, her hand resting on the handle.

James swallowed hard, his pulse hammering in his ears. "We're not going to just give up on you, Ana."

For a moment, there was nothing. No movement, no reaction, just silence stretching between them like a chasm.

Then—

"Knock yourself out," she said flatly.

And without another word, she walked out.