The heavy oak doors clicked shut behind Elara, and the sudden silence in the grand bedchamber was deafening.
The moment I was left alone, the adrenaline that had been keeping my muscles locked completely evaporated. The playful warmth of our scheming dissolved, leaving behind the cold, heavy reality of what we had just escaped. My thumbs-up dropped limply onto the velvet. My chest throbbed where Stephen had crushed me against the iron pole, and my right wrist—though not broken—was swollen and hot from where he had twisted it.
Every time I closed my eyes, I didn't see the mountain of delicious food on the table; I saw the bright, roaring orange flash of the lighter falling to the fuel-soaked floor. I could still smell the ghost of the acrid smoke in my hair. I was genuinely exhausted. The trauma wasn't something a hot bath could just wash away; it was settling into my bones like lead.
