"Whatever I want. That's not something I hear very often."
I know.
I know exactly how rarely you're allowed to want anything. How he's trained you to ask permission to breathe. How every choice has been stripped away until you've forgotten you ever had them.
Don't you worry, baby girl. I'm going to kill everyone who made it that way.
TWENTY-EIGHT
TRISTAN
Keira walks ahead of me, and I watch the tension slowly seep from her shoulders with each step away from the clinic. Like the farther she gets from that sterile room, the more she remembers how to breathe.
The town unfolds around us in quiet, cobblestoned charm. Painted storefronts in faded blues and greens line the narrow streets, windows fogged from the warmth inside. Locals pass with polite nods but no lingering stares. They've learned not to ask questions about the woman from the big house on the hill or the guards who trail her like shadows.
We pass a bakery exhaling the warm scent of fresh bread. A pub with muffled laughter spilling through the door. A flower shop with buckets of winter blooms shivering in the cold.
She stops in front of a bookshop.
The display window is modest. A few paperbacks propped against faded velvet, a hand-lettered sign advertising a local author's reading. I linger beside her, waiting.
"I used to read all the time." Her voice is distant, like she's speaking to someone who isn't here. "Before. I couldn't fall asleep without a book in my hands. Used to drive my mother crazy when I stayed up too late."
She turns from the window. Her reflection fades with her.
"Now I don't sleep at all."
She's not talking to me. Not really. She's talking to the version of herself she used to be, mourning her from a distance.
I want to reach for her. Tell her she'll read again. Sleep again. Laugh again. That I'm going to drag her out of this nightmare and return every single thing he stole.
But I stay silent and walk beside her.
The street narrows as we move deeper into the old part of town. The ground becomes uneven. The light dims, and the air turns colder, thick with moss and age.
Her heel catches on a loose stone.
She stumbles, losing her balance as her body pitches forward. I grab her on instinct.
My hand closes around her elbow as I pull her upright against me.
She goes completely still.
Frozen. Like the contact short-circuited something in her brain, rerouting every thought to the single point where my skin meets hers.
We're both holding our breath. Her face inches from mine.
"I'm fine," she manages, the word catching.
I don't let go. "You're shaking."
"I said I'm fine."
But she doesn't pull away.
Doesn't step back.
Doesn't do any of the things she should.
