Page 17 of Serpent King's Revenge

I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate for a moment of peace, a single second without the weight of my past crushing me. But even behind closed lids, the horrors played on repeat. Faces of those I'd taken down, their eyes wide with terror—they flashed before me. Men who crossed Ba, enemies of the family.

Their blood was on my hands, a debt I could never repay.

"Stop it!" I shouted into the darkness, but it was like yelling into a void.

Trembling, I hugged my knees to my chest, trying to make myself smaller, invisible. Maybe if I couldn't see the room, it couldn't see me. But the phantoms didn't need light to find me. They crept into my thoughts uninvited, a parade of nightmares that wouldn't end.

Each time I blinked, a new horror emerged. There was no escape, nowhere to run. The life I'd lived, the choices I'd made—they all clawed their way into my present, demanding attention, screaming for recognition.

"Enough!" My voice cracked in the stifling silence.

The desperation to flee from my own mind clawed at me, demanding release. I couldn't stand it—the stillness, the memories—it was all too much.

Then, like a switch flipped, light flooded the cell. It poured in through the window, so bright it hurt my eyes. I squinted against it, shielding my face with my arm, but the brilliance didn’t fade. It just kept getting brighter and brighter until I had to close my eyes.

When I dared to open them again, I wasn't in the cell anymore. I was in my bedroom, the familiar scent of Abby lingering in the air—the one hint of lightness in my life of darkness. The softness of the sheets contrasted sharply with the harsh concrete of my cell floor.

"Abby?" I whispered, half-believing she'd vanish if I spoke too loud.

She was there beside me, her smile gentle as dawn. My hand rested on her belly, and beneath my palm, there was the unmistakable curve of pregnancy. My heart stuttered in my chest. This was a new dream, a different kind of vision—one filled with hope instead of despair.

"Hey," she said softly, her hand finding mine, her warmth bleeding into my cold skin. "It's going to be okay."

Her words were simple, but they carried the weight of the world. They promised a future—a family—something real and solid that I could cling to, a life raft in the stormy sea that was my reality.

"Is it?" I managed to ask, though my throat felt tight.

She pressed a kiss to my temple. “I’ve got you,” she whispered.

"Is this real? This can't be happening," I said, my voice trembling. It was too good, this quiet moment with her, too far from the grim truth of my situation.

Abby didn't let go, her fingers squeezing mine just a little tighter. "Yes, it is real," she assured me, her voice steady and sure in the haze of my disbelief. "This thing between us, the family we're about to start. You need to hold on, Nathan. Just survive."

Her words were a lifeline, pulling me back from the edge of despair. In that moment, surrounded by the softness of our would-be life, the chaos of my world stilled. Abby was my anchor, her presence a silent vow that there was something worth fighting for beyond these walls.

But then I blinked.

The warmth disappeared, replaced by a chilling emptiness. The gentle contours of our bedroom dissolved into the harsh lines of the cell. My eyes flew open, meeting only darkness. The cell was cold, unforgiving.

Moonlight snuck through the small window, a cruel mimicry of hope. It was all a dream—a hallucination. Abby wasn't here. There was no baby, no promise of a future.

There was just me, alone with the ghosts of my past.

I rubbed at my eyes, trying to erase the remnants of the dream. But instead of bringing relief, my hands came away wet with tears—tears for a life that might never be, for the love I felt slipping through my fingers.

"Damn it," I muttered to the empty room, my voice rough with emotion. I drew my knees up to my chest and let the sobs come. In the darkness of my cell, with the moon casting long shadows across the floor, I grieved for everything I'd lost—and everything I still stood to lose.

I deserved this. For a second, I was certain of it.

And I was never going to get out.

Chapter Eight: Abby

Morning light seeped through the tinted windows of the living room, casting a gentle glow over all of us–silent figures who didn’t know what to do, the Zhou family brought to ruins. The usual hustle of San Francisco felt like a distant murmur. I rubbed my stomach unconsciously, the queasiness lingering like a bad aftertaste.

Pregnant.

The word echoed in my mind, but it was Alex's safety that had me teetering on the edge.

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