Chapter 141 Permission To Dream

• AMELIA POV
• I wake without the familiar knot of dread in my stomach, and for a moment I lie still in the morning light, testing the feeling like someone probing a healing wound. Six months since Victoria’s conviction, and the nightmares have loosened their grip, coming only once or twice a week now instead of every night.
• Daniel’s still asleep beside me, his breathing deep and even, and I watch the rise and fall of his chest while sunlight streams through the curtains we forgot to close last night. We’ve gotten careless with things like that, stopped checking the locks three times before bed, stopped jumping at every car door that slams in the neighborhood.