Page 2 of Seeking Shadows

Somehow, it made me happy. Like there was still a thread tying us all together. But it also hurt. I hadn’t been there to see it unfold. I hadn’t been part of it. I was always watching from the outside, missing the moments I would’ve given anything to live.

Another picture—this one came from Laura: Seth, with Nora curled up in his lap, her eyes glowing like he was the sun. It made my chest ache. I missed them. All of them. More than I could ever say.

But I had to focus. I had to keep them all away from this mess. Because then panic struck me like a lightning bolt. If Zane is real… if they all are… then the Mitchell isn’t. And if my father finds out the truth—that I married a man beyond his control, that I barely escaped—he’ll destroy everything.

He’ll kill Zane. He’ll erase me like he’s erased so many parts of me before. But now I have something he didn’t expect. A truth. And that...that gives me something I've never had before.

A choice.

And maybe, for the first time, I'm ready to fight for it.

CHAPTER 1

MIA

PRESENT

I wake upwith my shirt clinging to my skin, damp with sweat.

My breath comes in short, uneven gasps, and for a moment, I can't tell if the pounding in my chest is from the remnants of the dream or the sheer panic still curling around my ribs.

Nightmare.

It's unsettling—this feeling that I now recognize as fear. It slithers through me like a cold whisper, something unseen but suffocating.

My heart pounds, not from danger, but from the weight of a ghost that doesn’t exist outside my mind.

And yet, it haunts me all the same.

This never occurred to me, in the days when I was trapped in the cage.

I was always good at suppressing my thoughts about James… or maybe I wasn’t? Maybe I just told myself that? Maybe I buried them so deep that I forgot I was even trying?

My is breath still uneven, and take in the place that now holds me—my new cage. A mansion, huge and drowning in silence, except for the ever-present weight of security guards stationed like statues, their eyes sharp, ready.

Ready for me.

No doctors today.

Good.

I turn toward the window, but the sun has abandoned me too. Just a heavy sky, swollen with clouds, pressing down like a bad omen.

The world outside looks dead.

Distant.

Like it doesn’t want me in it.

I wouldn’t want me either.

My head aches—a dull, throbbing pressure, foreign and unwelcome. Fear is still an unfamiliar guest in my body. I was never taught to be afraid. So I always smiled instead, let my lips stretch into something pretty and sharp, pretending it was enough. But lately, there’s been this nagging feeling, like maybe life isn’t real at all. At least, not the way I thought it was.

I move through the room, dragging my fingers over the polished furniture, tracing the smooth edges, the richness of it all. It’s not metal.It’s not small.

It’s not real.

Something twists inside me. A flicker of something I don’t want to name. I shake it off, pushing my body forward, carrying myself to the bathroom. I step under the water and let it run over me, warm and steady, grounding me, forcing my eyes closed for just a second—

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