Chapter 112

SIENNA

The rain kept ticking at the windows like a metronome gone mad. I sat propped against the pillows, wrists sore from their weight against the mattress, heart slow but loud, like it was pacing inside a cage. Minutes passed. Hours, maybe. Or seconds. Time was unreliable here, bending under the weight of silence.

Then I heard it.

The creak.

Not from the hall. Not faint or distant. No, this