Willow woke to the unfamiliar softness of Victor's guest bed, the kind of mattress that enveloped the body rather than resisted it. Heavy curtains kept the early sunlight at bay, leaving the room in a muted, golden half-light that made everything feel distant—her limbs, her thoughts, the faint nausea pooling under her ribs. For a long moment she didn't move. The quiet pressed around her like a cocoon, thick and absolute, the first true silence she had tasted in weeks. No footsteps. No slamming doors. No vibrating phone demanding explanations or apologies she no longer owed.
When she finally reached for her phone out of habit, her hand froze mid-air. She remembered turning it off the night before, shoving the device into her coat pocket like an enemy she didn't dare look at again. She did not reach for it now. She didn't want to see names she could no longer bear—Zane, Miles, Christy. She didn't want the world clawing at her before she was capable of standing.
