The days didn't pass. They dragged. Each hour stretching into the next, heavy and suffocating, until time itself felt like something cruel, something designed to wear them down. For fourteen days, the Pedro estate became a quiet battlefield.
Amara moved through it like a ghost.
Every morning, without fail, Amira appeared at her door with the same porcelain cup filled with that bitter recovery tea. The smell alone was enough to make Amara's stomach turn now, sharp and herbal, lingering long after the last sip.
"You need to finish it," Amira would say, her tone gentle but firm, watching closely as Amara forced it down.
Amara never argued. She didn't have the strength to. And somehow… she trusted her.
Even now. Even when something deep inside her whispered that she shouldn't.
—
Far from the estate, but never truly absent, Sebastian remained a constant shadow. His presence came in the form of short, precise messages. Is she pale? Is she eating? Any changes? No wasted words.
