The house had always felt large before—its endless corridors, its polished rooms, its echoing ceilings. Now it felt small. Too small.
Every lock clicked louder. Every door thudded heavier. Every shadow seemed to watch me.
Daniel hadn’t spoken to me since the field. He didn’t need to. His silence was louder than his rage, colder than his threats.
Adrian, though… Adrian was gone. Not gone as in vanished—gone as in taken. Somewhere in this house, hidden behind locks I couldn’t find, he was being held. And every moment I couldn’t reach him clawed at me like a wound that wouldn’t close.
The Silence
The morning after the failed escape, I sat at the breakfast table, untouched food cooling on porcelain. Daniel sipped his coffee like nothing had happened, the newspaper spread wide in front of
