Not when his voice still sounds like safety.
Not when—for the first time—
I don’t feel alone in the dark.
The lie pulses in my chest like a second heart.
Alive.Patient.
And it tells me something I don’t want to hear.
The longer I stay here—
The harder it will be to leave without destroying him.
The truth isn’t gone.
It’s only waiting.
And when it rises—
It won’t whisper.
It will tear everything open.
The Footsteps Return
The moment doesn’t fade.
It shatters.
The air changes first.
I don’t hear it — not at first.
I feel it.
A pressure shift.A wrongness crawling up my spine like icy fingers.
Then—
Crunch.
The sound slices through the tunnel and straight into my ribs.
Boot on gravel.
Slow.Measured.
Not hurried.Not searching.
Approaching.
My heart rockets into my throat.
I don’t breathe.I don’t move.I don’t think.
On the other side of the steel, Santino stills so completely he might be carved into the wall itself. Whatever warmth we were wrapped in vanishes in a single breath.
