Neo stepped out into the hallway and found the three of them waiting where he had left them.

Snot was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, one foot pressed back against the plaster. Alice stood beside Marika without saying anything, close enough to step in if she had to, quiet enough not to crowd her. The fourth place in the group stayed empty.

Max wasn’t there. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Nothing in the corridor filled that absence. No voice, no shield hanging from a broad shoulder, no easy promise that if things turned ugly, he would stand in front of it first. The space where he should have been drew the eye on its own.

Snot straightened a little when Neo came out. "You done?"

Neo gave a short nod. "Yeah."

"What did they ask you?" Snot pushed himself off the wall and rolled one shoulder. "Same annoying things as us or special treatment because you’ve got that permanently miserable face?"

Neo ignored the second part. "Questions about the tower. My head. What I remembered. What I saw inside."

Snot snorted. "Pretty much the same, then. They asked me whether I was hearing things, whether I wanted to kill anyone, whether I’d had trouble sleeping, whether I felt unstable." He clicked his tongue. "Apparently telling them I’m always unstable didn’t help."

Alice glanced at him and said in her low voice, "They asked if I lost control in the fight."

Snot turned his head toward her. "And?"

"I didn’t."

"Very convincing," he said, with the faintest crooked smile.

Alice didn’t answer, but something in her face softened for half a breath before it faded again.

Neo’s attention shifted to Marika. She had not looked up once since he stepped into the hall. Her hands were clasped together too tightly in front of her, fingers pressed hard enough to pale at the joints. Her mouth moved a little before any sound came out.

"They told me..." She stopped, swallowed, and tried again. "They told me I should rest. That I shouldn’t enter another Breach for a while."

Snot’s expression changed first. The last trace of lightness left it without a fight.

Marika let out a breath that shook on the way out. "They said after something like that, it’s normal if I’m not... right." Her voice caught on the last word. "That I should take time. That I shouldn’t force it."

No one rushed to answer.

The corridor stayed quiet around them, with the muffled sound of doors opening and closing somewhere deeper inside the building. Marika kept her head lowered, and when she spoke again, the words came out rougher, as if she had been holding them in since the tower and they had started cutting on the way up.

"They’re right."

Snot unfolded one arm. "Marika..."

She shook her head before he could finish. "No. Let me say it."

That stopped him.

Marika drew in another breath, though it did little for her. "He died because of me."

Alice moved a fraction closer.

Marika laughed once, and there was nothing warm in it. "Everyone keeps saying it wasn’t my fault, that the boss would’ve killed someone anyway, that none of us knew what would happen. I know what happened." Her fingers tightened together again. "I froze. That’s what happened. I froze, and Max had to step in because I couldn’t move."

Snot rubbed at the side of his neck. "You were in shock."

"And he died." The words came out faster that time. "That part doesn’t change."

Neo stayed where he was; there was nothing useful to say against that kind of guilt. Not while it was still fresh enough to bleed through every sentence.

Marika lifted one hand and dragged it across her face, wiping at tears that had already started gathering again. "He told me," she said, almost in a whisper now. "Before that. In the tower. Max told me how he felt."

Snot went quiet in a different way.

Alice’s mouth tightened.

Marika stared at the floor. "He confessed to me, and I told him..." Her voice broke there and came back thinner. "I told him I’d give him an answer when we got out."

No one moved.

"We did get out," she said, and the bitterness in that came out raw enough to leave the air heavier than before. "I did. He didn’t."

Snot lowered his head for a moment and let out a slow breath through his nose. Even he had nothing ready for that.

Neo understood at once what would stay with her. Not only Max dying in front of her, but that other thing now tied to it, the answer left hanging, the promise of later turning rotten the moment later never came.

Marika’s shoulders shook once. "I keep thinking that if I had done one thing differently, if I had moved faster, if I had seen it earlier..." A broken laugh slipped out of her. "Even that answer. I left him waiting for something he was never going to hear."

Alice moved before anyone else could. She stepped in and wrapped both arms around her.

Marika gave way almost immediately.

Her hand flew to her face and the crying came out ugly and helpless against Alice’s shoulder, the kind that had been held down for hours and finally found a crack. Alice didn’t try to fill it with words. She only kept her there, one arm firm around her back, the other at the side of her head, as if that alone might keep the rest of her from coming apart.

Snot turned his face aside and stared at the corridor wall, one hand over his mouth, all his usual noise gone.

Neo watched without saying anything. Part of him understood why Alice had done that before anyone else could even think of the right thing to say. Another part had already reached the harder truth beneath all of it. Marika was done. Maybe for months. Maybe for good. If she stepped into another Breach like this, she would die, and if she didn’t, she would drag the others into the same grave with her.

’It’s better like this.’

Marika pulled in a breath that hitched halfway through. "I think I’m going to leave it." Her voice came out muffled first against Alice’s shoulder, so she forced herself back enough to speak properly, even if her face was still wet. "All of it. Breaches. Gray Hand. Any of this." She wiped at her cheeks with the heel of her palm and gave a weak shake of the head. "I can’t do it. My head can’t do it. I know that now."

Snot looked at her for a long moment, Neo did the same. Alice kept one hand on her shoulder.

Marika swallowed and pushed the rest out with visible effort. "I’m not going to Gray Hand. I’ll take a break. A real one."

"Yeah," Snot said softly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Alright."

No one pushed back on it. That made it heavier in a way Marika probably felt too. If any of them had argued, maybe she could have fought them and held herself together through that. Instead, all three of them knew she was right.

For a while, the corridor held nothing except uneven breathing and the muffled sounds from deeper in the building. Marika got herself under control little by little, not fully, not even close, but enough to stand without breaking again. When she finally spoke, she clung to the practical things because they were the only ones she could still hold without bleeding all over them.

"I’ll talk to Max’s family," she said. "And about the funeral."

Snot nodded once.

Marika glanced at the phone in her hand, fingers tightening around it. "I’ll let you know through the group chat we had."

Neo gave a short nod. "Alright."

Alice stayed beside her, close enough that it was obvious she wasn’t leaving Marika alone any time soon.

That was the end of it.

There was nothing left to say that would improve what hung between them. Snot muttered that they should get moving before they spent the whole evening standing there like a pack of ghosts. Marika gave the smallest motion of agreement. Alice shifted with her at once. They separated there in the corridor, not because anything had been resolved, but because there was nowhere else for the moment to go.

Neo left the building alone.

Outside, the city felt wrong after that hallway, after Marika’s voice, after the hole Max had left in the group. Cars passed. People crossed the street with bags in hand. Light spilled over the pavement in pale strips. None of it cared about a tower, or a dead boy, or a confession that had missed its chance by a handful of hours.

By the time Neo reached home, the whole month seemed to fall on him at once.

He opened the door, stepped inside, and shut it behind him. Silence met him there. No camp noise, ruin, someone speaking from the next room nor a heavy snoring when he was trying to sleep. Just a still apartment waiting exactly as he had left it.

Neo stood there a moment, one hand still near the door.

It had been nearly a month since he had slept in anything close to a good bed.

He crossed the room, got rid of what he needed to get rid of, and dropped onto the mattress face-up. It should have felt better than it did. Instead, the exhaustion of the last weeks came down properly for the first time, whole and heavy, while the room stayed dark around him.

He didn’t move again.