Prudence lay in silence, the linen sheets cold beneath her. The room had quieted, yet her mind did not. A question loomed like a fog she could not see past: Why did he leave?
Her gaze remained fixed on the door.
The panic arrived slowly, like dusk bleeding into night. At first, it was only the emptiness of the room. Then, the awareness of absence. Her heart, once steady in the relief of his presence, now began its erratic thudding again. She had been through too much to be alone. Not now. Not after all that.
'Why did he leave me alone?'
Ten minutes stretched like hours. Just as the pressure began to mount into something unbearable, the door opened abruptly, and in stepped Vincent.
But he was not alone.
