Kimberly
Time became a stranger in that place.
There were no windows, no clocks—only the slow drip of water from the ceiling and the creak of chains whenever I moved too sharply. My limbs ached. My mouth was dry. Hunger gnawed at me, but it was the silence that drove me mad.
I didn’t cry.
I couldn’t.
Every tear felt like something Cindy would have savored.
Instead, I counted.
The seconds. The breaths. The times the guards changed outside the door.
Anything to keep my mind from unraveling.
Sometimes I talked to the baby.
Whispers in the dark. I told them stories about the outside, about the sun on my skin, about the flowers that bloomed near the western wall of the manor. I told them I loved them, even if I didn’t know what love meant anymore.
I didn’t know what to think of Kendr
