{Ding!}
Akhil's eyes shot open to a familiar ceiling.
White paint. Crown molding imported from Italy. A custom chandelier his father had commissioned that probably cost more than most people's cars hanging in the center of the room.
His ceiling.
His room in the Patel estate.
Reality
His muscles felt like someone had put them through a meat grinder, then reassembled them slightly wrong. Every small movement—turning his head, flexing his fingers, even breathing—sent waves of complaint through a body that had been unconscious for three weeks while his mind fought in a death game.
But beneath the soreness, beneath the exhaustion, beneath everything—
Relief.
Pure, overwhelming relief that made his chest tight in ways that had nothing to do with phantom wounds from blades that shouldn't exist anymore.
