GENEVIEVE'S POV
My limbs were lead. Heavy, dead weights dragging me down into the cold earth beneath me. I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore, couldn’t tell if the tremble running through them was fear, exhaustion, or both. Every breath scraped through my throat like shattered glass, sharp and useless. My vision blurred at the edges, a dark halo swallowing the light, as if the world itself was trying to vanish before the worst could unfold.
I couldn’t move fast enough. Couldn’t think clearly. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, but everything else was muffled, like I’d been buried alive in slow motion. My body was screaming at me stop, shut down, give in but my soul, the fragile flicker of it still burning somewhere deep inside, refused.
I couldn’t let him have me. I wouldn’t. Not like this. Not when I belonged to someone else.
Not when I’d already given myself heart, body, soul to André.
Even broken and bruised, I was still his. Still tethered to the safety I found in his arms, the fire
