Part 131
The cell was small, white, and too quiet.
It wasn't like the quiet she had built for him — the soft, controlled silence of her house, filled with warmth and the faint hum of music.
This quiet was cold. Empty.
Aura sat on the narrow cot, hands clasped in her lap, staring at the faint reflection of herself in the metal door. The fluorescent light above her flickered every few seconds, the sound sharp and steady, like a metronome counting time she could no longer keep.
Time without him.
They'd taken everything from her when she arrived — her notebooks, her phone, even the ring she never told anyone was his. She hadn't fought them. She just watched their faces as they asked questions she couldn't answer.
"Why did you take him?"
"How long were you holding him?"
"Did you ever intend to hurt him?"
The words hurt made her laugh. Not loudly — just a quiet, cracked sound that escaped before she could stop it.
Hurt him?
She'd given up her entire life to save him.
Her gaze drifted to the tiny window at the top of the wall, a thin slice of gray daylight bleeding through. Somewhere out there, the world had him again.
The crowds.
The flashing lights.
The noise she'd tried so hard to protect him from.
Maybe he was singing again. Maybe smiling.
Maybe pretending it was all fine.
The thought twisted something deep inside her.
He would survive — of course he would. He always had. But he would forget her.
The one who stayed. The one who loved him when no one else saw the cracks behind the perfect smile.
A knock at the door.
A guard slid a tray inside — a cup of water, a folded paper.
She didn't touch the food. But she reached for the paper.
It was a newspaper clipping, probably left there by mistake.
The headline read:
"Adrian Speaks Out: 'I Just Want Peace Now.'"
Her fingers traced his name. Slowly. Carefully.
And for the first time since that night, her chest felt hollow — not with anger, but with something close to grief.
She whispered to the empty cell,
"You said you'd never leave me."
Then she smiled — faint, broken, but still there.
"I guess you finally learned how to lie."