Aria's POV

I woke up hungry. Not the kind of hunger you can ignore with water or by lying still, but the sharp kind that claws at your insides until it feels like your body is eating itself. My stomach growled before my eyes even opened, reminding me I hadn’t eaten properly in days.

The room was quiet, the curtains still drawn, but the noise from the city outside seeped through the walls — cars rushing, horns blaring, voices rising and falling. Life went on out there while I lay here ...