Page 188 of Somno Slave

I stand. The movement feels slower than it should, like my body is recalibrating after sitting too long under too much pressure. My chair slides back into place with a soft, final sound.

He steps aside. He gives me space this time.

I walk past him without looking up.

The corridor air is colder, cleaner. It should feel like relief, but it doesn’t. Because all I can hear is Friday.

The day that they take him from me.

And the day that could reveal how invested I really am.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Rheda

My flat is quiet in the wrong way, like it’s been holding its breath waiting for me to come back. I close the door behind me and stand there longer than I should, keys still cold in my hand, staring at nothing.

I force myself into movement because standing still feels worse. Shoes off by the door. Jacket over the chair. Bag dropped onto the kitchen table. Small ordinary things, the kind that should make a place feel familiar, should remind me I belong here and not somewhere else entirely.

But the silence follows me from room to room. I turn lights on I don’t need just to break it, harsh yellow filling the kitchen, then the living room, but it only makes the flat feel more exposed.

I should be relieved to be away from him. Instead, all I can think about is going to sleep.

The thought makes my stomach turn because I know exactly what it means.

Another dream. Another chance. Another opportunity to drag something useful out of him that I can’t get in daylight. Something I can write down. Something that could stop Friday from becoming final.

It is humiliating how badly I want it.

I brace my hands against the kitchen counter and stare at the sink, trying to breathe through the tightness in my chest. My body feels ahead of me somehow, reacting to things my mind is still trying to deny. There are flashes at the edge of thought thatnever fully become memory—pressure at my hips, heat at the back of my neck, the sick certainty of being watched so closely it starts to feel like touch.

I turn the tap on harder than necessary. Water crashes into the sink, loud and immediate, something normal, something that behaves the way it should.

I almost lost my job today. The thought should sober me. Six years of painful grinding to get an ounce of respect, almost gone within an hour.

And yet I find myself walking to the bedroom. I barely bother undressing properly, just enough to get under the sheets, tired in that deep, ugly way that sits in the bones. My body aches with it. My thighs still carry that dull soreness I can’t explain without thinking of things I can’t prove happened.

Sleep comes slowly, then all at once, heavy and inevitable. The world loosens around me. The mattress beneath me feels farther away. The room tilts, soft at the edges, and somewhere inside that blur, my pulse starts to climb. I know this feeling. I know what comes next.

And then—he is there.

Standing at the edge of the bed like he has always belonged there, like the room was built around the shape of him. Still. Watching. His presence fills the space so completely.

My breath catches hard enough to hurt. And with it, the anger returns.

“You don’t get to do that.” I manage, though my voice comes out thinner than I want, frayed at the edges. “You don’t get to lie like that and then just—”

The words die in my throat because I hear it. The accusation sounds too much like hurt, like I’ve been waiting for him instead of fearing him. Heat crawls up my neck.

I stop, disgusted with myself, with how exposed I’ve made the wound.

“You disappeared,” I say instead, forcing the words out before they can rot into something softer. I need them to sound like anger. I need them to sound like accusation instead of ache. “You left, and then you just—”

The sentence collapses under its own weight.

I drag in a breath. “You’re letting them kill you.”

He says nothing. He just watches me with that same unbearable stillness. He steps closer.