Rehab for SuperVillains (18+)-Chapter 279: barbs
"I’m sorry. For the fights, the barbs, the walls we built. For every time Tila snapped or pushed you away. She never meant to hurt you. It was just... survival. But please... forgive her. Forgive me. We were both so lost, clinging to each other in the dark. I was her shield, her voice when she couldn’t speak. But now..." She choked, a hand pressing to her chest as if to hold herself together.
"Now she’s finding her light without me."
Freya stepped closer now, slowly, her voice gentler than Rhea had ever heard it, laced with a tremor of her own.
She reached out, hesitating before placing a hand on Lila’s arm—cold, so cold. "Lila... we don’t understand what’s happening to you, but you’re scaring us. Talk to us. Let us help."
"You don’t have to understand," Lila said, managing a watery smile through the tears, her black eyes shimmering with a mix of sorrow and peace.
"Just take care of her. That’s all I ask. Promise me. Promise you’ll be there when she stumbles, when the memories creep back in the night. Tell her... tell her it’s okay to cry, to be weak sometimes. That she’s not alone anymore."
Rhea blinked fast, tears slipping down her own cheeks now, her voice thick.
"You’re not making sense—wait, are you dying? Is that what this is? Lila, don’t—don’t do this."
"No," Lila murmured, her body trembling more violently, her fingers going still against the sheets as if the strength was draining from her limbs.
"I’m fading. There’s a difference. Dying... that’s for the living. I was never truly alive. Not like her. I was a piece of her soul, born from the pain, the loneliness. A shadow given form to protect what was breaking." The dim aura of power that always lingered around her began to flicker, like candlelight in a dying wind, casting erratic shadows across the room.
She gasped softly, her breath slowing, her eyes fluttering as if struggling to stay open.
"She’s not broken anymore," Lila whispered, her voice growing fainter, like an echo down a long corridor. "She’s whole. And that means... I don’t have to be here. I can let go."
A moment passed, heavy and suffocating.
Another, where the only sound was Lila’s ragged breathing and the quiet sobs from Rhea.
And then the collars around her neck—so heavy, so sharp—slid off with a faint metallic clink, tumbling onto the bed as if the locks had never really held anything real, anything substantial.
Lila exhaled, slow and shuddering, as light began to break across her skin in soft, ethereal patterns—like sunlight spilling through a curtain, warm and fleeting.
Her body shimmered, the edges blurring, thinning like mist in the morning air.
She reached out weakly, her hand brushing Freya’s, cold fingers grasping for one last connection.
"Tell her... thank you. For giving me a life. For letting me feel... real. For the mornings we shared, the laughs, the quiet moments where I almost believed I was more than a ghost. Tell her I love her. That I’ll always be a part of her, even if she can’t see me anymore."
Freya’s grip tightened, tears streaming down her face as she shook her head. "Lila—wait, please. Don’t go. We need you too. Tila needs you."
But it was too late.
In the blink of a breath, Lila was gone—dissolving into flecks of light that danced briefly in the air before vanishing, leaving only a faint warmth on the sheets where she’d sat.
The bedsheets were still rumpled, indented with the shape of her body.
The collars lay discarded on the bed, lifeless now, mocking in their emptiness.
But the girl who’d been sitting there moments ago—the one with the soft smiles, the kind eyes, the quiet strength—had vanished like morning fog, leaving behind an ache that clawed at the chest.
Rhea swallowed hard, her throat dry and burning, tears blurring her vision as she stared at the empty space.
"What the fuck just happened?" Her voice broke, a sob escaping despite her efforts to hold it back.
Freya didn’t answer right away.
Her eyes were still locked on the place where Lila had been, her hand hovering in the air where she’d last touched her.
Slowly, she reached down, picked up one of the collars, and held it in her palm—light, so unbearably light now, as if it had never truly contained a life at all.
A tear splashed onto the metal, followed by another, and Freya whispered, her voice cracking with raw, choking grief, "...She was a ghost. A shadow with a soul. And we... we never loved her. Not really. We were hostile from the start, pushing her away, treating her like an enemy when all she needed was kindness. No one ever liked them—the twins were always the outsiders, the broken ones we kept at arm’s length. And now... now she’s gone, and I realize too late how much she meant. How much we could have given her, if we’d only tried."
Rhea sank to her knees beside the bed, her tough facade shattering as sobs wracked her body, her hands clutching the empty sheets where Lila had been.
"We hated them," she gasped, voice thick with regret, tears streaming unchecked.
"From the very beginning—we saw threats, not sisters. Not people who were hurting, who just wanted to belong. Lila... she tried to bridge it, with her smiles, her quiet apologies, but we pushed back harder. And now? She’s faded, and all that’s left is this emptiness, this ache for what we never said, never felt until it was too late."
The silence that followed wasn’t hollow.
It was devastating.
Crushing.
A grieving void that screamed with the echoes of Lila’s soft laughter they had ignored, her whispers they had dismissed, her unspoken dreams they had trampled underfoot.
The room felt frozen, desolate, as if its very soul had been ripped out, leaving behind only the hollow regret of missed chances and unspoken love.
And outside, the wind howled mournfully, carrying a faint, heartbroken sigh through the trees—like the final, unspoken plea of a sister who had given everything, only to fade unloved into the light she had so desperately helped create, leaving behind hearts forever scarred by what could have been.
