“And if I don’t?”My voice came out low and lethal.
Her stare went dead serious.
“She will die,” she said.“And so will you.”
I stared at her.
“How do you know any of this?”
She gathered the cards slowly.Calmly.
“Because fate is louder than you think,” she murmured.“And when fate wants two people to collide… the whole world bends to make it happen.”
I stood so fast the chair snapped backward and hit the ground.I needed air.Distance.Something solid.
The reader watched me rise without blinking.
“Find her,” she warned.“Before the men who took her finish what they started.”
I turned to leave.
“Wait!”
I stopped.
“You’re running out of time.”
I walked out without another word—angry, shaken, furious that she’d crawled under my skin.
But her words followed me through the market like smoke.
No matter your original sin… seek your redemption in saving Neve.
And for the first time in my life—I was terrified that she might be right.
22
Neve
Idrifted in and out of consciousness, caught in that sick, weightless space between waking and blacking out.I didn’t know how long I’d been here.Minutes.Hours.Maybe longer.Time didn’t mean anything in the place that held you against your will.Not without light or a window, not without the sun to mark the difference between one heartbeat and the next.
There was only darkness.And the steady drip of a water pipe somewhere above me, falling in uneven intervals that scraped against my nerves.There was only the thunder of my own heartbeat, loud and swollen in my ears.
My jaw throbbed with every pulse.My ribs burned when I shifted.My wrists were torn raw from rope and struggling.But I was still breathing.That had to count for something.
At some point - I wasn’t entirely sure when - someone cut me down.The memory was smeared, as though my brain couldn’t stay awake long enough to register the hands that touched me.
I was sitting on the ground.My back was pressed to a cold concrete wall, legs heavy and useless in front of me.
I forced my eyes open just as the door creaked open.A sliver of light fractured the dark.Footsteps followed as someone entered the room.
It was one of the guards.He walked in alone, closing the door behind him with a slow, deliberate click.There were no other footsteps outside.No voices and no movement.Just him.
My stomach dropped.His smile made my blood go cold.
“Well,” he stepped closer, “looks like you and I finally have some time alone.”
I pushed myself tighter against the wall.