Whispered Shadows

Chapter Thirty-Four

Spiraling

Noa

The coldness of the floor seeps into my bones, unrelenting. I can barely move, chained here like some forgotten relic, bound in this suffocating place where light is nothing more than a flicker.

My body is sore and bruised from my struggles, but my mind is worse off. It's heavy, drowning in a sea of questions, fear, and guilt. The kind of guilt that settles in your chest, making it hard to breathe, like a weight that never lets up.

I try to breathe through it, but every inhale feels like an effort. My head spins, my thoughts erratic. Time no longer matters. The hours bleed into one another, blending like a bad dream I can't wake up from. Every creak, every movement in the shadows makes my heart leap, but it's always empty. Silent. Still. A void.

I try to breathe through it, to focus on anything else. But my mind keeps drifting back to Ryder.

He wasn't supposed to be part of this. He wasn't supposed to get caught up in my mess, in my nightmare. But here we are. And despite everything that's happened, despite the weight of this place, my thoughts keep circling back to him.

I can't help it.

The thought of him—the way he looks at me like he sees something in me that I've never seen in myself—becomes my anchor, even in this chaos.

His strong hands, his protective nature, the way he holds me like he's afraid I'll disappear if he lets go for even a second.

His eyes, always searching mine, always trying to figure me out, to understand me. I remember how he looked at me in the car that day, the soft smile that crept onto his face when I made some silly comment, the way he laughed at my bad jokes like I was the most important thing in the world to him.

What would it be like to have him beside me again? To feel his arms around me, to hear his steady voice reassuring me that everything would be okay?

Will I ever see him again? Will I be stuck here for years like Gia was? Will Paige soon realize that I am not a replacement for Gia? What will she do to me then?

The room feels smaller the more I think about him, the more my mind drifts toward what could be. What could we be?

I close my eyes for a moment, allowing myself to imagine it—to imagine us together. No more hiding. No more secrets. Just... us. I could picture it so clearly.

Ryder and I, side by side, navigating life together. Maybe even something more than that.

The thought sends a jolt of heat through my chest, a reminder of everything I've been fighting for. Of what's worth living for. I've spent so much time running, hiding from the darkness, from everything that threatens to swallow me whole, but now... now I'm not sure I want to run anymore.

I think about how we could start fresh. Build something, anything together. Ryder's smile, his laugh—those things would never feel like enough until I could be with him. But I could make it work. I could fight for that future, for the life we could share.

The way he feels, the way he made me feel that night—our first kiss. The memory of it plays in my head, over and over, like a song I can't forget. It was unexpected. Neither of us had planned for it, but it felt right.

I remember how the air between us had changed. There was a moment, just before it happened when we were lying in that hotel bed. It had been a long, exhausting day, and we both knew things were getting more dangerous with each passing hour. But at that moment, with the dim lights and the soft hum of the air conditioner, it felt like time had stopped.