Page 18 of Inevitable Endings
They throw me back into the cell. The door clangs shut behind me with a finality that sends a shiver down my spine. My wrists scrape against the chains as I stumble forward, the weight of the metal dragging me down. The dim light above flickers like it’s about to die, and the room feels smaller with each breath.
I fall to my knees, my hands trembling with the aftershocks of the last round of torture. Sweat beads on my forehead, a sheen of cold that mixes with the heat still coursing through my veins. The pain… it’s a living thing, gnawing at the edges of my sanity, pulling at my thoughts like a tide.
The dark presses in on me, thick and suffocating. I barely register the isolation at first, my senses overwhelmed by the pain, but slowly, the silence becomes oppressive. There’s no sound but my ragged breathing, the slight rattle of the chains. The air is stale, heavy with the scent of sweat and blood, my blood.
I curl in on myself, desperate for relief, but there’s nothing. Nothing but the darkness, the void stretching endlessly in every direction. I can’t remember the last time I had been in this muchpain, not since the worst of the wars, the betrayals. But this is different. This is slower. A calculated kind of suffering, a twisting of the mind as much as the body.
Hours stretch on, nothing but agony. I want to scream.
I try to focus, to block out the whispers in my head, but it’s like a floodgate opening, each thought pushing its way through the cracks in my resolve. Isabella’s face, her eyes, wide with fear, with confusion, with love, haunts me. She’s out there. And I’m here, a prisoner in my own body, unable to protect her.
And I wonder—how much more can I take before I break for her?
Chapter 10
Shattered Silence
Isabella
The clinic sits on the edge of the countryside, a squat brick building with flickering fluorescent lights above the entrance. The sign is weathered, the white letters spelling out;Westbridge Community Health, faded and cracked. From the outside, it looks like nothing, just another underfunded, overlooked corner of the world where the desperate come looking for something they aren’t sure they’ll find.
The parking lot is mostly empty when I arrive, just a few scattered cars glinting under the streetlights. My breath clouds in the cold as I step out of the car, pulling my coat tighter around me. The wind carries the faint scent of damp asphalt, and somewhere in the distance, a dog barks.
The lobby is small, the walls painted in muted colors, meant to soothe, but the overhead lights are too harsh, making everything feel sterile, washed-out. The air smells like antiseptic and cheap coffee, the kind that sits too long in the pot and turns bitter.
The night shift is always the quietest, at least, until it isn’t. Until the doors burst open and the night spills in, carrying the wounded, the broken, the ones who’ve been battered by things no one wants to name.
I pass the front desk, nodding at Theresa, the receptionist, a woman in her fifties with tired eyes and an endless supply of peppermint candies. She gives me a knowing look. “You actuallytook a night off,” she says, voice tinged with amusement.
“I wouldn’t call it that.”
She snorts. “Didn’t think so.”
As I make my way down the hall, I spot David leaning against the nurses’ station, flipping through a patient chart. He’s an ER nurse who picks up shifts here every now and then—tall, wiry, with sharp features and an even sharper sense of humor.
“You’re back already?” he muses without looking up. “Thought you were finally taking a break.”
I smirk. “Apparently, so did Theresa.”
David chuckles, shaking his head. “We both know you don’t do time off.”
Beyond him, a couple of volunteers move between rooms, restocking supplies and checking in on patients. They rotate in and out, never the same faces for too long, students looking for experience, retirees who refuse to sit still, a few good souls just trying to help. They come and go, but the chaos of the night shift never changes.
The hallways stretch in dull, linoleum paths, lined with exam rooms and supply closets, the occasional outdated poster reminding staff to wash their hands. I hear the low murmur of voices behind closed doors, the quiet beeping of a monitor, the faint scrape of a chair against tile.
And then there’s him.
Leaning against the doorframe of one of the exam rooms, arms crossed, watching me with the sharp, assessing gaze of someone who never really stops being a soldier.
Ethan ‘Sawyer’ Beckett.
Ex-Army medic, served two tours in Afghanistan, got out with scars both visible and not. Ended up here, in this nowhere town, patching up drunks and overdose cases instead of bleeding soldiers.
“Didn’t think you were coming in tonight,” he says, voice roughfrom too many years of yelling over gunfire.
“Ada made me take the night off. I didn’t argue.”
He raises a brow. “You? Not arguing? Shocking.”
