#Chapter 211 – Nowhere to Run

Lila I should have gone to bed hours ago, but my hands refused to stop moving. Grinding, mixing, sorting – it was a comforting rhythm. The pestle scraped against stone, steady until the sound blurred into something else entirely. The steady thud of a heartbeat that wasn’t mine. I froze. The air thickened around me, pressing heavy against my skin. For a moment, I thought I imagined it, that exhaustion had finally blurred the edges of reality. But then it came again, low and rhythmic, echoing through the hollow in my chest. Damon. Ruby stirred, her voice strong in my mind. He’s reaching for us. “No.” The word came out as a whisper, barely audible over the rain tapping the windows. “He can’t –” But I felt it before I finished speaking. A flash of heat behind my ribs. A sharp pull behind my sternum. Then, like a door unlocking, the bond flared to life. It wasn’t the soft hum I remembered, this was jagged, raw, chaotic. Pain roared through it first; Damon’s pain, foll