Chapter 21
ADAM’S POV
Darkness.
Thick. Suffocating. Endless
It colls around me, seeps Inta my skin, settles deep in my bones. I can’t move, I can’t breathe.
Then–light. A flicker. Dull, yellow. Buzzing overhead like it’s dying. It flickers again. And again.
I see walls, cold, cracked, bleeding with stains that never wash away, I see hands, mine, maybe, but they don’t feel like mine. There’s something on them. Something warm. Something sticky.
Drip, Drip. Drip
It hits the floor. The sound echoes, stretching the silence too thin, turning it into something sharp, something unbearable.
Drip.
Then–footsteps. Slow: Deliberate. They crawl up my spine, send ice through my veins.
Someone’s here.
I don’t look. I can’t look. But I feel them. Their presence–heavy, like a shadow that’s not mine. Then a volce, low and distant, yet impossibly close.
“Did you really think you’d walk away?”
I turn. Or maybe I don’t.
I see nothing. And everything.
Pain. Regret Blood.
“You did this.”
No
“You let it happen.”
No.
“You should have been faster. Smarter. Better,”
“Not hard enough.”
The words crash against me like a tidal wave. I can’t fight them. They bury me, drown me. Then the light flickers again–faster, more frantic, like it’s warning
- me.
The walls start closing in. The air thickens. The
e ground tilts.
No way out
No way out.
gapped awake,
My chest was heaving. My skin damp. My fists clenched so tight my i felt raw, like I’d been screaming.
my mail dug into my palois, leaving behind half–moons indents. I exhaled, sharp. My
My throat
I sat up, dragged a hand down my face. My pulse was a drumbeat in my ears, wild and unsteady. The room was dark, but it was different now. This darkness
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Chapter 21
wasn’t the same. This one didn’t reach for me with clawed hands, didn’t whisper in my ear, didn’t threaten to swallow me whole.
I knew that.
But it still took me a minute to believe it. The red glow of the digital clock taunted me.
12:47 AM.
I didn’t know why I bothered checking anymore. It was always the same. Never once had I made it through an entire night without waking up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath like I was still suffocating in that dann dream.
With a sigh, I reached for the pill bottle on my nightstand, popped two into my mouth, and swallowed dry. They didn’t work. They never did. Maybe they dulled the edge for a while, just enough to convince me I might get some rest, but deep down, I knew better. The darkness always came back.
I threw off the sheets and got up, flicking on the light as I headed for the door. But something made me pau
The fucking MİETDE.
My reflection stared back at me, hollow–eyed, jaw tight, muscles called like I was bracing for another hit. But it wasn’t my face I focused on. It was my chest.
The scars had faded over time, but I still saw them. I still felt them. A roadmap of pain carved into my skin, a past that never really let go.
I turned slightly, my gaze falling to my arm.
That scar.
Out of all of them, it haunted me the most.
I reached up, fingertips brushing over the rough skin, but I barely touched it before I pulled away. Exhaling sharply, I grabbed a spare sheet off the bed and threw it over the mirror. I didn’t need to see any more. I walked out, hending straight for the kitchen. Grabbing a bottle of water, I twisted off the cap and downed half of it before setting it on the counter with more force than necessary: The tension in my shoulders refused to ease, so I did the only thing that ever helped.
1 grabbed my phone and went to the gym.
It was empty, just how I liked it.
I climbed onto the treadmill and started running. Hard. Fast, Pushing myself past exhaustion, past the ache in my legs, past the thoughts clawing at the edges of my mind
Then….Layla.
The image of her flashed in my head–her body breaking apart under my hands, under ny tongue, the way she moaned my name like I was the only thing holding her together. I gritted my teeth and slammed the emergency stop button. The treadmill jolted to a halt, and I staggered off, panting, drenched in
I collapsed onto the bench, dragging a hand through my hair.
