~ Ophelia’s POV ~
The world spun.
Not sideways… not like falling,
but like being dragged through a tunnel made of smoke and panic, a tunnel that felt alive, closing in around me.
Liam’s grip locked around my wrist like steel.
Too cold.
Too strong.
Too certain as if he’d already claimed the outcome.
“Let go!” I gasped, coughing, vision swimming through the white haze shapes dissolving like ghosts in a storm.
Ryker’s voice cut through the chaos:
“OPHELIA!”
He was close.
Too close for comfort.
Too far to save me, caught between desperation and impossibility.
Liam pulled harder.
My fingers slipped from Ryker’s hand.
A sound tore from him…
not a shout, not a threat…
A sound I’d never heard from him before.
Fear… raw, unmasked, and aimed entirely at losing me.
I stumbled forw
