I jolted awake, heart pounding, my breaths coming in quick, shallow gasps as the last fragments of the nightmare clung to me, refusing to let go. It was Agent Thorne’s face that lingered most vividly, his cold, twisted smile looming over me. In the nightmare, he had captured me, had me trapped. I was in the trunk of his car, the air suffocating and stale, pressing down on me from every direction. I’d tried to scream, but the darkness seemed to swallow my voice, muting my pleas for help.
Every bump in the road was like a punch, jarring my body and making my fear sharper. I could hear the muffled hum of his voice from the front, taunting, laughing. It was as if he was relishing my helplessness, drawing power from it. The longer I lay in that dark, confining space, the more I became convince
