Chapter 40 The Cost Of Being Seen

• The knock was soft, careful, and somehow worse for it.
• I was awake before it landed, staring at the low ceiling of the room they had given me, counting the cracks in the stone like they might rearrange themselves into answers if I looked long enough. The air felt tight. Not dangerous. Just watched. The kind of silence that presses too close to your ears.
• When the knock came, my heart jumped anyway.