I sat beside her, close enough to feel the tremble in her spine. She was telling them everything now—her family. The ones who’d spent two years wondering if she was dead or worse. And now they were hearing the truth. Every brutal detail.
I’d heard most of it before. Not like this. Not in daylight, with her voice steady and her eyes locked on her father’s. I’d heard it in the dark, when her nightmares clawed through sleep and she’d wake gasping, reaching for me like I was the only thing keeping her tethered to this world.
But this—this was different.
She spoke of Boris like he was a storm that never passed. The isolation. The punishments. The way they broke her down piece by piece and made her question her own name. Her mother cried quietly. Her brother looked like he wanted to kill some
