CHAPTER 38: THE NAME BEHIND THE SHADOW
By the time the second morning of our deadline arrived, time had stopped feeling like something steady and reliable. It no longer moved in minutes or hours, it pressed in on us, heavy and urgent, like something alive that was closing in from all sides. I woke before dawn again, my body refusing rest even though exhaustion clung to every part of me. For a few seconds, I stayed still, staring at the ceiling, trying to hold onto that fragile space between sleep and awareness where nothing had gone wrong yet. But it didn’t last. Reality rushed back in, the message, the man, the warning, the ticking countdown that now defined everything we did.
I got out of bed quietly and walked to the window, pulling the curtain aside just enough to look out. The stre
