Ella
Epoch was here. Somehow, impossibly, he had found me. The sheer reality of it struck me in a way that left me trembling. I wanted to recoil, to bury myself in the earth and disappear, but the moment my eyes met his, the panic in my chest softened. The burning haze that had consumed me since the drug took hold seemed to lift slightly.
I could barely move, still weakened, still raw from the effects of the spiked cocktail, but his presence anchored me. His gaze, intense and unflinching, scanned me as though reading every thought, every heartbeat, every secret fear. For a moment, I feared what he might think, but then I realized: he wasn’t judging me. He wasn’t angry or disgusted. He was just… here.
“Gloria,” he said, his voice steady and commanding, carrying the kind of certainty I ha
