Danika finally stopped seeing his shadows on the wall.
She'd heard his footsteps long before he entered the room. That steady, calculated rhythm — not too fast, not too slow. Always controlled.
He had been there again.
He'd come to stare. Like he always did.
She'd lay with her back to the door, her eyes fixed on the stone wall in front of her, memorizing every crack and every faint bloodstain faded with time. She hadn't moved in hours.
The mattress was soft beneath her bruised back — too soft. Maybe because she'd grown used to sleeping on the floor since she came to this pack. But that alone had seemed suspicious.
So was the untouched bread and stew they'd left earlier. Food. Real food.
She hadn't eaten anything since the night they'd dragged her from her quarters like a criminal — not even the moldy crumbs left by previous prisoners from her first cell. But now there was seasoned meat and thick soup, the kind she hadn't tasted in weeks.
