CLAUDE
THE CUFFS CLICKED open.
They took their time about it—one wrist, then the other—like it mattered now, like it would somehow make a difference after everything they’d already said to me.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t lower my arms.
Didn’t speak.
The burn where the metal had bitten into my skin pulsed faintly, but even that felt far away—like it belonged to someone else. Everything did. My body. My breath. The air I kept forcing into my lungs even though every inhale scraped like glass.
They banned me.
From seeing him.
From touching him.
From Nikolai.
I stood there like a ghost in my own skin, listening to the silence stretch. No one spoke to me. No one looked at me. It was like once they’d ripped him from me, I stopped existing.
Good. Let me vanish. Let me fall apart somewhere th
