I do not want to hide.
The thought comes to me quietly, fully formed, sometime after midnight when the city has softened into a distant hum and Damian’s breathing beside me has evened out. The penthouse feels suspended in that strange hour where time stretches thin, where everything feels exposed and honest. Streetlights throw pale reflections across the ceiling. Somewhere far below, a siren rises and fades.
I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, replaying the message on the screen, the way the words landed with intention rather than noise.
We know where to find you.
It was meant to shrink me. To make me fold inward. To remind me of how easily fear once controlled my choices, how quickly I learned to disappear when survival demanded it. It was meant to drag me backward into old reflexes.
