"What are you doing here?"
Her pulse skipped.
The hallway hung in a heavy, suffocating quiet, the kind that pressed against her ears and chest at once. Her heart thudded in uneven, clumsy beats, each one echoing too loudly in the stillness, betraying the careful grace she had tried so meticulously to maintain. Slowly, Raya turned her head, a deliberate motion, cautious, measured, though inside her, a tiny spark of panic curled like a snake in her stomach.
