Page 100 of Sage Haven
I stopped breathing.
My head snapped toward the door, eyes wide. My pulse spiked as my ears strained to catch it again. For one agonizing moment, there was nothing but silence.
Then another scream. Softer this time, as if whoever was screaming was already too far gone.
No.
Please let me be imagining this.
But I wasn’t.
I knew I wasn’t.
The sick churn in my gut turned violent, like nausea twisting through bone and marrow.
It came from below.
Somewhere I couldn’t see.
Somewhere I wasn’t supposed to hear.
Tears burned behind my eyes, but I didn’t blink them away. They slid hot and silent down my face as I curled tighter, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound.
I couldn’t fall apart.
But my body still betrayed me.
Sobs tore through me, raw and ragged, scraping my throat on the way out. I clawed at my skin, nails biting in deep enough to leave crescents, desperate to feel something that wasn’t terror or despair.
Desperate to escape this place.
This body.
This life.
Memories crashed over me.
Providence. Sam. All the times I thought I could be free.
I tipped my head back, gasping for air, and my gaze caught something by the window.
Books.
The sight of them sent a jolt through me. I blinked, pushing myself forward on shaking hands and knees to crawl toward them.
Something flickered inside me.
Hope, maybe. Or desperation pretending to be hope.
Some were mine—ones I’d brought with me to Providence.
But others weren’t.
The last girl must have had them, I thought.
I touched their covers with trembling fingers, as if they might vanish. Or worse—disintegrate beneath my touch.
I exhaled slow and shaky, dragging myself upright. My hands found the windowsill as I pulled myself to standing, leaning heavily against the cool frame.
