ELODIE’S POV
Everything felt different after that.
Not because the room had changed, not because the guards outside suddenly disappeared or the walls stopped closing in on me, but because something inside me had finally settled into place in a way it hadn’t before. The attack hadn’t just shaken me—it had clarified something I could no longer ignore, something I had been trying to work around, reason through, soften into something manageable. I wasn’t safe here. Not in any version of this reality.
Not under Damon’s control, not under Nyra’s watch, not inside a system that could decide at any moment that I was a threat and remove me like I meant nothing. I stood near the center of the room long after everything had quieted, my arms wrapped lightly around myself as I stared at nothing in
