✧˖°.⊹📖⊹.°˖✧
The stone floor presses against my feet. Chains bite into my wrists, metal cold and unyielding. Every step outside my cell, every shadow passing, reminds me how trapped I am.
When is Dante coming? I ask myself over and over, but the hours stretch, endless. Each tick of the clock is a drum of hopelessness.
I close my eyes, remembering the motel- his warmth, the way he holds my hand.
A shout echoes down the hall. My chest tightens. Every instinct screams danger. I slump against the wall, dragging the chains.
And then- a sound. Not theirs. A footstep, careful, light, deliberate.
Hope sparks. My eyes snap open. Shadows shift in the hall. I catch a flash of black, a shape sliding past guards. My heart leaps.
"Lila!" His voice cuts through the chaos, sharp and alive.
I barely have time to react before a small gun skids across the floor toward me. I snatch it up, my hands trembling.
Before I can think, before the world can catch up, he pulls me into a kiss.
Desperate. Furious. Alive.
It's brief but searing. Every second of pain, every hour of waiting, every breath of fear condenses into this one moment.
Footsteps pound closer. Guards are screaming. The world is chaos. But for a heartbeat, there's only us.
And then he whispers, "Lila. I have to find another escape route. The guards destroy the one I take. I can only help you here. You've got to do the rest alone."