CLAUDE
I DIDNT FEEL the ride.
I didn’t feel the hands on me or the arms that held me down when I fought like a cornered animal. I didn’t feel the cold of the floor under my knees or the sting where my nails broke skin, clawing at the cement, at my own skin—anything that wasn’t him.
What I felt was the bond.
Or what was left of it.
Fading. Dimming like a dying star. The tether we’d only just built peeling thread by thread.
He was slipping through my fingers, and I couldn’t stop it.
I couldn’t f*****g stop it.
My body shook with it—with pain, with anger, with fear so sharp it chewed through my ribs like acid. The moment they ripped him from my arms, something cracked. I didn’t know if it was in my chest or my head or my soul, but it broke and I couldn’t find it again.
And when the
