//CLARA//
The morning light cut through the curtains in thin, golden blades, and I traced the scar on my wrist with the pad of my thumb. Three days had passed since the fever broke. Five since Silas's hands had last touched me.
At least, I think it's been five. When you spend half your time drifting through a gray, fever-dream haze and the other half fighting for a single clear breath, the calendar starts to feel like a suggestion rather than a fact.
I've been mostly in and out of consciousness… more a passenger in my own body than the person behind the wheel.
The marks had faded to pale silver threads, barely raised against my skin, yet I could still feel the phantom pressure of rope biting into flesh. My foot had healed as well, the splinter wound closed to a small pink circle that no longer throbbed with each step.
Even the gash on my collarbone, where the knife had grazed me, had knitted together into a thin white line I could hide beneath a high collar.
