Ariana's POV

There was a kind of silence that didn’t feel peaceful.

The kind that curled into your bones and whispered, something is coming.

I felt it that morning. The air was too still. The walls are too quiet. The guards outside my room stood more upright than usual like they were expecting gunfire, not breakfast deliveries.

And then it happened.

The echo of a commotion shouts, fast footsteps, a man’s voice yelling something muffled and urgent.

Then a thud.

A scuffle.

...