Chapter 21
1414 Words
✨The Night Didn’t Let Go.✨
Flora pov
Flora lay awake long, long after Nasir left her at the door.
The room was too quiet in the way unfamiliar places always were—every sound exaggerated, every silence heavy. The thin walls breathed around her. Somewhere down the hall, a door creaked open and shut. A cough echoed once, then stopped. Footsteps passed, slow and unhurried, as if whoever walked there had nowhere urgent to be.
She sat up in bed, hugging her knees to her chest.
The lamp beside her flickered faintly, its light yellow and tired. She hadn’t bothered to unpack properly. Her bag lay open on the floor, the map Floyd had given her half-slipped out, edges bent from being folded and unfolded too many times. She stared at it like it might move on its own.
Her heart was still racing—not from panic exactly, but from something else that unsettled her just as much.
Nasir.
The way he’d stayed close. The way his voice never rose. The way his hand had rested on her back, firm and grounding, like it belonged there.
She pressed her palm to her chest, as if to slow herself down.
You barely know him, she told herself.
But her body didn’t seem to care. It remembered the warmth of his coat around her shoulders, the faint scent of something clean and sharp—soap, maybe, or cold night air. It remembered how the world had narrowed when he touched her hair, when he looked at her like she wasn’t fragile glass but something worth guarding.
That scared her more than the shadows had.
She stood and crossed the small room, barefoot on the cold floorboards. The window overlooked the street—a narrow stretch of stone and lamplight. She hesitated before pulling the curtain aside, heart jumping as if she expected to see someone standing there.
Nothing.
Just the empty street, slick with old rain, the lamppost humming faintly. Still, she scanned the shadows carefully, her gaze catching on every darkened doorway, every alley mouth.
You’re safe, she told herself. You’re free.
The words didn’t settle easily.
Back home, fear had been constant, predictable. It lived in raised voices and slammed doors, in rules that shifted without warning. Here, fear was quieter. It crept. It waited.
And tonight, it wore too many faces.
She thought of the shadow she’d seen earlier.
The way it had lingered just long enough to make her stomach drop. The way Nasir’s body had moved instinctively, like he’d sensed it too.
What if it wasn’t your imagination? What if someone really was watching?
Her throat tightened.
And then another thought slid in, softer and more dangerous:
What if Nasir had noticed something you didn’t?
She let the curtain fall closed and leaned her forehead against the cool glass.
Later, she lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The mattress creaked under her weight. She listened to the boardinghouse settle around her—the murmur of distant voices, the hum of pipes, the occasional clink of dishes from somewhere below.
Her stomach growled suddenly, sharp and insistent.
She froze, then laughed quietly at herself.
“I forgot,” she whispered to the empty room.
“I didn’t eat.”
The realization hit her harder than it should have. Back home, meals were structured, controlled, watched. Here, hunger crept up on her without permission. Freedom, she realized, didn’t remind you to eat.
She sat up again, rubbing her arms.
You could go back out, a reckless part of her suggested. Just to find something small.
Her heart immediately protested.
No. The night felt too close. Too aware.
Instead, she rummaged through her bag until she found the small roll Floyd had tucked inside—bread and something wrapped in paper. She ate slowly, carefully, as if afraid the food might disappear if she rushed.
Each bite grounded her a little more.
Then sleep came in fragments.
She dreamed of running—always running—but this time, there were no shouts behind her. Just footsteps, measured and unhurried, always the same distance away. When she turned to look, she couldn’t see a face. Only the outline of a man standing just beyond the light.
She woke with a gasp, sitting upright, heart hammering.
The room was dark now. The lamp had burned out.
For a long moment, she couldn’t move.
Then—softly—she heard it.
A sound outside.
Not loud. Not obvious. Just the faintest scrape, like a shoe adjusting on stone.
Her breath caught.
Don’t panic, she told herself. You’re imagining it.
But her body didn’t listen.
She slipped from the bed and moved toward the door, every step careful. She pressed her ear against the wood, listening.
Silence.
Too much of it.
She almost laughed at herself—until there was a knock.
Three soft taps.
Her blood turned to ice.
She didn’t answer.
The knock came again, firmer this time.
“Flora,” a low voice said quietly. “It’s me.”
Nasir.
Her knees nearly buckled with relief.
She unlocked the door and pulled it open just enough to see him standing there, calm as ever, his posture relaxed but alert.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She shook her head, breath still unsteady. “I—no. I just… I thought—”
“I know,” he said gently. “May I come in? Just for a moment.”
She hesitated, then stepped aside.
The room felt smaller with him in it—but not in a suffocating way. More like it had found its center.
“You didn’t eat,” he said, glancing at the bread wrapper on the table.
Her cheeks warmed. “I forgot.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “I thought you might.”
He set a small paper bag on the table. “Soup. From the café. Nothing fancy.”
She stared at it, throat tight. “You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.”
She opened the bag slowly, the warmth and scent immediately filling the room.
Something in her chest loosened.
“You’re… very thoughtful,” she said.
He shrugged lightly. “You’re very easy to worry about.”
She huffed a laugh. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”
“Eventually,” he said.
She smiled despite herself.
They didn’t sit close. Not yet. He leaned against the wall while she perched on the edge of the bed, sipping the soup carefully.
The silence between them wasn’t awkward—it was charged, humming with things neither of them said.
“I didn’t want to leave you alone tonight,” he admitted quietly. “The street felt… off.”
Her fingers tightened around the cup. “So it wasn’t just me.”
“No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”
A chill slid down her spine.
“Do you think—” she began, then stopped.
He waited.
“…that someone is looking for me?” she finished.
His gaze softened, but there was steel beneath it. “I think,” he said carefully, “that you’ve been noticed.”
Her chest tightened. “By who?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But I will.”
The certainty in his voice both calmed and terrified her.
“You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t,” he said. “But I don’t scare easily.”
She looked at him then—really looked. At the stillness in him, the way he seemed carved from control. At the man who moved through shadows like he belonged there.
“And me?” she asked softly. “Do I scare you?”
Something flickered in his eyes—too fast to name.
“Yes,” he said honestly. “But not in the way you think.”
Her breath hitched.
They stayed like that for a long moment, the night pressing against the windows, the boardinghouse breathing around them.
When he finally left, it felt different this time—not like abandonment, but like a promise held just out of reach.
As she locked the door behind him, Flora leaned against it, heart racing—not from fear alone, but from the dangerous realization that safety, once tasted, could become its own kind of addiction.
And somewhere outside, unseen and unspoken, the night watched back.
- Writer
