Chapter 33
1135 Words
✨The Quiet Before the Shadow.✨
Flora Pov
Flora did not know when the trembling finally left her body.
She only knew that the water had gone lukewarm around her, that the steam had thinned, and that the mirror no longer showed a girl with swollen eyes and a mouth pressed tight with fear. The girl staring back at her now still looked fragile, still looked unsure — but calmer. Softer. As if something heavy had been set down, at least for a little while.
She wrapped herself in one of Nasir’s shirts and padded barefoot across the cool floor, her hair still damp against her shoulders.
The door was half open.
Light spilled in from the bedroom, warm and golden. And there he was — stretched across the edge of the bed, jacket gone, sleeves rolled, phone in one hand, looking uncharacteristically… peaceful.
When he saw her, his whole face changed.
Not dramatically. Not with surprise.
Just the quiet kind of smile meant only for one person.
“There you are,” he said softly. “I was starting to think the bath claimed you.”
She laughed before she could stop herself. A small sound — but real.
“I nearly drowned,” she said. “In bubbles.”
He rose and crossed the room in two long strides, stopping in front of her. His fingers lifted, hesitated, then brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Better.”
And she was. Truly.
Whatever storm had shaken her earlier felt far away now, like thunder rolling off beyond the hills.
He handed her a glass of juice. “Drink. You cried yourself empty last night.”
Her cheeks warmed. “You’re not supposed to remember that.”
“I remember everything about you,” he said easily.
That made her look down.
He caught her chin gently. “Flora. Not like that. I mean… the good parts too.”
Something in her chest loosened.
They spent the next hour doing nothing remarkable — and somehow it became the most remarkable part of her life.
They lay on the bed and argued about which song was better from the old radio station he liked. They stole fruit from the tray he’d brought and fed it to each other until juice ran down her fingers and he mock-scolded her for wasting it. She laughed so hard at one point that she fell against his shoulder and stayed there, breathing him in like she was memorizing the moment.
He told her stories about his childhood that made no sense and ended with him being chased by his sister through the house.
She told him about the tiny boarding room she’d first slept in, how she’d counted cracks in the ceiling to keep from crying.
At some point, she realized something quietly astonishing.
She was not afraid.
Not of the room.
Not of the silence.
Not even of him.
The world had shrunk to the space between them, warm and safe and unreal.
A bubble.
Later, when the afternoon light had softened and the city noise drifted lazily through the windows, he stood and stretched.
“I’m going to grab us something to eat,” he said. “Stay right there.”
She smiled. “I wasn’t planning to run.”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Good.”
The door closed behind him.
And for the first time since she’d come to this city, Flora was alone without feeling lonely.
She wandered the room slowly, curious now in a gentle way — touching the spines of books, tracing the edge of the desk, peering out the tall window at the street below. Everything here spoke of him: orderly, expensive, quietly powerful.
She liked it.
On the desk, beneath a neat stack of papers, something pale caught her eye.
An envelope.
Not addressed.
Just… placed there.
She hesitated. She was not the kind of person who went through other people’s things. But something about it tugged at her — not curiosity exactly, but a strange tightening in her chest.
She lifted it.
Inside was a folded sheet.
Her name was written across the top.
Flora.
Her breath caught.
The handwriting was unfamiliar — not Nasir’s careful script. Sharper. More hurried.
Only one line was written.
Her name.
That was all.
No signature.
No date.
No explanation.
Her heart began to beat too fast.
Why would anyone write that?
Why would it be here?
She stared at her name until they blurred.
Maybe it meant something else.
Maybe it was nothing.
But the room suddenly felt too quiet.
She folded the paper quickly and slid it back into the envelope, returning it exactly where she’d found it — as if pretending she’d never touched it could make the feeling leave her chest.
She walked back to the bed and sat very still, hands knotted in her lap, listening to the tick of the clock on the wall.
When Nasir returned a few minutes later with bags of food and an easy smile, she was already smiling back.
“Found us dumplings,” he announced proudly. “And something sweet you’ll pretend you don’t want and then steal.”
“You know me too well,” she said.
He frowned lightly. “You okay?”
“Yes,” she said at once.
And she meant it.
Mostly.
They ate. They teased. They talked.
But all the while, somewhere deep inside her, something uneasy kept whispering.
As evening fell, a knock sounded at the door.
Nasir froze.
Not visibly. Not dramatically.
But she saw it — the way his shoulders tightened, the way his eyes sharpened in an instant.
“I’ll get it,” he said.
Through the crack in the door, she heard low voices.
A man’s voice she didn’t recognize.
Urgent.
Quiet.
She couldn’t make out the words.
Nasir came back a moment later, face carefully blank.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, too quickly. Then smiled. “Just work.”
She nodded.
She always nodded.
But later, when he walked her to the window and pointed out the lights of the city, she noticed something she hadn’t before.
Down on the street.
Across from the building.
A man stood beneath a lamppost.
Not moving.
Not smoking.
Just… watching.
She blinked, and when she looked again, he was gone.
That night, when she finally fell asleep curled against Nasir’s side, she dreamed of footsteps behind her — slow, patient ones that never hurried, because they knew she could not run forever.
And somewhere else in the city, a man was dialing a number.
“Rafe,” Nasir’s voice would say when the call connected.
“We need to talk.”
- Writer
