Pain flared—but it was muted.
I peeled back the edge of my pajama top with shaking fingers.
White gauze covered the long slash between my breasts, expertly cleaned and neatly stitched beneath. Smaller bandages dotted my ribs. Bruises bloomed across my arms and sides—angry purples and sickly yellows—but they were healing, not bleeding.
Someone had taken care of me.
I was wearing black silk pajamas—long-sleeved, high-necked, soft enough to feel obscene against skin that had known only dirt and pain for so long. They fit perfectly. Too perfectly.
A chill slid down my spine.
Someone had undressed me.
Washed me.
Dressed me again.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. My bare feet met cool marble, grounding me just enough to keep my knees from giving out.
Slowly, carefully, I stood and crossed the room, each step tentative, like the world might shatter if I moved too fast.
I pushed the window open.
Fresh air rushed in, filling my lungs until my chest ached with it.
Somewhere below, water lapped against stone docks. Life continued, blissfully unaware that I had almost died in a place no map bothered to acknowledge.
“Someone tell me this is real,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “That I didn’t just... trade one cage for another.”
My fingers brushed the silk at my wrist. No blood. No grime. No trace of the rag that had barely clung to my waist when I collapsed in that car.
A miracle.
Or the calm before another nightmare.
My thoughts slammed into the others like a physical blow.
Ana.
Sofia.
Christina.
Simona
Carina.
Had they made it? Had the forest swallowed them and kept them safe, or had the Albanians hunted them down the moment the tunnel was discovered?
And Bianca.
The image of her pinned against that wall burned behind my eyes. If I survived and she didn’t—
My breath hitched.
Then another thought crashed through everything else.
Vanya.