Chapter 223
~ Navine ~
I burst through Hailey’s office door and the sight of her on the floor, struggling to breathe, made my heart stop completely, like someone had reached into my chest and crushed it in their fist.
She was curled on her side, one arm stretched toward the door as though she had been trying to crawl for help and hadn’t made it in time. Her body jerked with every shallow inhale, her throat making a faint, terrifying sound that didn’t belong to breathing at all. For a split second, my mind refused to accept what I was seeing, clinging to the hope that this was a misunderstanding, that she had fainted, that she would sit up and laugh weakly and tell me she was fine.
But her face told the truth. The swelling. The discoloration. The panic frozen in her eyes.
Without think
