Chapter 40
FORTY
The room is steeped in a heavy, suffocating quiet, the kind that presses in from all sides until it feels like the walls themselves are breathing.
The thin mattress beneath me sags in the middle, its surface rough against my skin, carrying the faint, lingering scent of bleach that never quite masks the deeper odors soaked into it. Sweat. Fear. Desperation.
I don’t remember when I fell asleep. Only that I fought it.
Exhaustion won anyway. It always does.
The dream clings to me when I wake, not as a single image but as fragments that refuse to let go.
A flash of red. The sharp echo of something striking flesh.
Hands, too many hands, grabbing, pulling, holding me down.
My lungs burn as if I’ve been drowning, and somewhere in the chaos, there’s a voice. Cold. Familiar.
Lina.
I wake with a strangled gasp, my body jerking violently as if I’ve been dragged back from the edge of something dark and endless. My chest rises and falls too quickly, breaths coming shallow and uneven, each one catching painfully in my throat.
“No…”
The word breaks apart before it fully forms, dissolving into a sob that I can’t quite contain. I curl onto my side, pulling my knees in tight, wrapping my arms around myself as though I can physically hold the pieces of me together.
It’s not real.
I repeat it in my head, over and over, like a fragile mantra.
It’s not real.
But my body doesn’t believe it. My skin still feels wrong, my muscles tight and trembling, as if the nightmare has followed me out of sleep and settled into my bones.
Tears slip silently from the corners of my eyes, trailing into my hairline as I press my fist against my mouth to stifle the sounds threatening to escape. I can’t let anyone hear me. I can’t risk it. Not here. Not after today.
The memory of Giuseppe’s hands—rough, bruising, lingering where they shouldn’t—makes my stomach twist violently. My throat tightens as I swallow back the nausea that rises with it.
Breathe.
Seamus’s voice surfaces in my mind, calm and steady.
I should hate it. But I don’t.
Find something. Focus.
I try. I latch onto the faint crack running along the ceiling, tracing its uneven path with my eyes, forcing myself to follow it, to anchor myself to something real.
But the silence presses harder.
The room feels too empty. Too still.
And then, the mattress shifts.
It’s subtle, almost imperceptible, but I feel it immediately. My body goes rigid, every muscle locking as fear floods my veins.
I didn’t hear the door.
Didn’t hear footsteps.
My breath catches, a sharp inhale that burns my lungs as panic surges back with renewed force. I scramble backward, my hands slipping against the thin sheet as I push myself toward the wall, heart hammering wildly in my chest.
“Hey… hey.”
The voice is low, careful, as though it’s trying not to startle me further.
Still, I flinch.
My gaze darts toward the source, straining against the dimness of the room. The shapes are indistinct at first, shadows layered against deeper shadows, but I can make out the outline of broad shoulders, the subtle shift of movement as someone adjusts their stance.
“It’s just us,” Yelena’s voice adds, quieter, closer.
Us.
The word doesn’t bring comfort. It shouldn’t. Not here.
“Don’t come closer,” I manage, my voice raw and unsteady as I press myself harder against the wall, as though I could disappear into it.
They stop immediately.
No hesitation. No argument.
Just stillness.
“Okay,” the first voice, Miranda, replies, gentle in a way that feels almost foreign in this place. “We won’t.”
The silence that follows is different. Not as suffocating. Heavy, but no longer crushing.
These women have been my anchor since I arrived. They aren’t catty or bitter. At least, not all of them. My chores have barely given me time to talk to them, and I’ve spent more than my share of the last however long I’ve been here in isolation, but they’ve still shown me kindness at every turn.
“We have to stick together,” they told me the first time they introduced themselves.
I drag in a shaky breath, then another, trying to steady the erratic rhythm of my lungs. My fingers curl tightly into the fabric of my shirt, grounding myself in the sensation.
“I thought…” My voice falters, the words catching somewhere between my chest and my throat. “I thought someone—”
“Bad dream,” Yelena’s voice says softly.
I hesitate, then nod before I can stop myself.
Something shifts in the air between us, making it steadier.
“We heard you,” Miranda murmurs. “Didn’t sound like nothing.”
I wipe at my face with the back of my hand, frustrated by the dampness there, by the weakness it represents.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, though the words lack conviction even to my own ears.
A quiet breath of sound follows, something that might have been a sigh or the faintest hint of disbelief.
“No, you’re not.”
There’s no cruelty in it. No judgment. Just a simple truth laid bare.
It twists something deep in my chest.
I don’t respond. I don’t trust myself to.
“Can we sit?”
The question catches me off guard. I glance at them again, trying to read their posture, their tone.
They aren’t advancing or crowding me. They’re just waiting for permission.
For my answer.
I nod.
They move with a quiet sort of control, lowering themselves without closing the distance more than necessary. One settles on the edge of the mattress, leaving space between us. The other leans back against the wall, her presence there steady but unobtrusive.
They don’t touch me.
“Just breathe,” Yelena says after a moment, her voice softer now, as though matching the rhythm she wants me to follow. “In and out. Slow.”
I almost resist.
But my chest still feels tight, the lingering panic refusing to fully release its grip.
So I try.
I draw in a breath, hold it for a second too long, then let it out in a shaky exhale.
“Again,” Miranda’s voice murmurs, calm and patient.
I follow the instructions.
In.
Out.
The tension begins to ease, just a fraction. Enough that my shoulders drop slightly, that my breathing evens out by degrees.
“You’re safe right now.”
The words settle over me in a way I don’t quite understand. They shouldn’t mean anything. They shouldn’t matter.
And yet…
Something in me loosens.
Not completely. Not even close.
But enough.
Enough that when exhaustion creeps back in, heavy and insistent, I don’t fight it as hard.
My head dips forward, my body swaying slightly as fatigue pulls at me.
A hand lifts, hesitates.
“Can I?”
I don’t ask what she means. I don’t have the energy.
I nod.
The touch is light. Careful. Her fingers brush against my temple as she tucks a damp strand of hair behind my ear, the motion so gentle it almost doesn’t feel real.
I close my eyes.
The tears come again, quieter this time, slipping free without the force of panic behind them.
No one comments.
No one tells me to stop.
They simply remain where they are, their presence steady and grounding in a way I can’t quite explain.
And somewhere between one breath and the next, with the echo of the nightmare finally fading into the background, I drift back to sleep.