POV: Clara

Morning filtered bleached and thin through the curtains, but the light was too weak to reach the storm still raging in me.

I awoke cocooned in a heavy blanket on Daniel’s couch, the fire a bed of glowing coals. My clothes were folded neatly on the chair beside me, now dry and smelling faintly of smoke and pine. My hair was damp and clung to my temples, but I didn’t remember him toweling it dry. My chest still ached where the tether thrummed, steady and merciless, ...