Page 86 of Inevitable Endings
Ada’s grip tightens. “Isabella,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. I hear something in it—something fragile, something breaking.
I lift my head just enough to meet her eyes, and my stomach twists again.
She’s crying.
Silent tears slip down her cheeks, her lips pressed together, her brows drawn in pain. Not for herself. For me.
That only makes it worse.
I shake my head, more tears spilling, my whole body wracking with uneven, gasping breaths. “I didn’t know,” I whisper. “Ada, I—I didn’t know.”
“I know,” she breathes, nodding, her hands sliding up to cup my face. “I know.”
My vision blurs, my head falling forward, and suddenly I’m in her arms. She’s holding me, her grip tight, unyielding, like she’s trying to keep me together while I fall apart.
“I didn’t even know,” I sob into her shoulder. “How could I not know?”
Ada doesn’t answer. Maybe there is no answer.
We stay there, kneeling on the cold tile, my body shaking, my mind unraveling, the weight of it all pressing down so hard I can barely hold myself up.
And then, after what feels like forever, she pulls back just enough to look at me, her hands still firm on my arms.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” she says, her voice thick but steady.
I blink at her, my mind sluggish, my body so weak I feel like I might collapse.
“No,” I murmur, shaking my head weakly. “I—I can’t—”
“You have to,” she cuts in, her tone gentle but firm. “You’re losing too much blood. We need to make sure you’re okay.”
The agony feels never-ending, relentless, like my whole body is being torn apart, and in the back of my mind, a single thought loops over and over: I didn’t know.
Chapter 39
Where Shadows Drown
the Light
Aslanov
Time has unraveled into nothingness. Seconds, minutes, maybe even hours, stretch and fold into themselves, devoured by the relentless rhythm above.
Drip.
A single drop of water strikes my forehead. Cold. Precise. Insignificant, at first.
The next one follows, perfectly timed, perfectly placed. A cruel metronome, marking the slow erosion of sanity. My head is immobilized, strapped down with coarse leather that bites into my skin. The rest of me is stretched across the metal table, wrists and ankles locked in steel, the chill seeping into my bones. Every breath is shallow, labored, as if my own body resents the effort of survival. My muscles ache from the rigid stillness, the inability to shift, to escape.
Drip.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but it makes no difference. The water doesn’t care. It lands in the same exact spot every time—tiny, relentless stabs against my skull. A slow, deliberate torment. The body can endure a beating, can even grow numb to it. But this? This is something worse. This is a patient kind of destruction, the kind that seeps through flesh and bone, burrowing deep intothe mind.
It’s been nearly an hour. Maybe more. Maybe less. Time is an illusion now, stretched thin beneath the relentless assault. My thoughts scatter like sand slipping through fingers. The anticipation coils inside me, a silent, unseen torment. I wait for each drop like I would a blade, flinching before impact, but it does nothing to stop the inevitability of it striking, the precision with which it finds its mark over and over again. My body is motionless, but inside, I am fraying.
A shudder racks through me. The chill of the table is a lover’s touch compared to the suffocating weight of waiting, of knowing the next drop is coming but never being able to predict exactly when. The cold has sunk deep into my limbs, dulling sensation, making me feel detached from my own body. But I am still here. Still aware. Still suffering.
The door creaks open. Footsteps. Measured. Leisurely. I know that rhythm.
