Chapter Two: The Sea Doesn't Weep

ELARA

The world didn’t come back all at once. It slithered.

Pain, first.

Not the sharp kind. The kind that clung. The kind that pulsed like an echo under skin. Like my body remembered being broken more clearly than it remembered being whole. Then sound crept in slow and hesitant. The sterile beep of machines, the soft whoosh of something mechanical, and a faint humming I couldn’t place. Like someone had left the world on low volume.

Then came light.

Faint, too bright all at once. My eyelids twitched. One gave in. The other stayed shut, heavy and swollen. My head throbbed. My throat felt like it had been lined with razors. Every breath came in struggle.

I tried to move.

Nothing responded. My arms were lead. My legs didn’t exist. I opened my mouth to cry, scream, ask. Anything. Nothing came out. Not even air.

Panic bloomed fast. It started in my chest and clawed its way up. I fought the weight pressing down on me. My heart slammed against my ribs like a prisoner desperate for escape. But my body wouldn’t listen. I was locked in.

White. The walls were white. The ceiling. The sheets. The room smelled like bleach and something deeper. Like blood. Like antiseptic. Like survival.

Then I felt it.

My face. Wrapped. Bandaged. As if someone had tried to patch a shattered vase with gauze and hope. My skin itched under the layers, tight and raw. My chest felt wrapped in something stiff. My breathing ragged.

What happened?

What the hell happened?

I squeezed my eyes shut. Willed my mind to rewind. Rewind. Rewind.

The sea. Milo.

His laughter echoing across marble tiles.

Ethan’s hand on my back.

Sienna’s smirk.

My baby’s scream.

Then darkness.

The memory cut through me like a blade made of ice and grief.

Milo.

I gasped. Or tried to. My throat seized. No sound came. Just raw pain.

My body jerked weakly against the bed, alarms blipping faster in response.

The door creaked open.

Then footsteps. Steady and sharp.

A tall figure entered, shadows trailing behind him like silk.

He wasn’t a doctor. Not with that suit. Not with that quiet command in his walk. His hair was slicked back, except for one rebellious strand that fell across his forehead. His features were cut from stone, all sharp angles and quiet restraint. But his eyes....

His eyes were what made me flinch.

Because they saw me. Not the bandages. Not the wounds. Me.

He paused when he saw my panic.

“Hey,” he said softly, his voice deep, steady. “You’re safe. I promise. You’re okay.”

I stared, chest rising in erratic tremors.

He didn’t come closer. Just lifted his hands in a silent truce.

“My name is Damien Rhys,” he said gently. “I found you. You were—” he paused, something flickering in his eyes, “—barely breathing. I got you out. You’ve been here in the hospital in Naples for several weeks. You’ve had multiple surgeries, chest injuries, internal bleeding.”

He stepped to the side, pressed the nurse call button.

“The doctors didn’t know who you were at first,” he added. “But I stayed. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

I blinked at him. Each word seemed to take a hundred miles to reach me. They dropped into my chest like stones.

I opened my mouth. Tried to shape the one word that clawed its way through the pain.

“Mi...”

It tore out of me, raw and jagged.

He took a single step closer.

“You’re asking about the little boy,” he said gently. “Your son?”

I nodded. Barely. The movement hurt like hell.

Damien exhaled.

And when he looked back at me, the softness in his eyes made it worse.

“I’m sorry.”

Two words.

That was all.

I broke.

Silently. Violently and alone.

There was no scream, no cry loud enough for what I felt. Just this pressure in my chest, this unbearable weight, this void.

I had survived.

And my son hadn’t.

The nurse came in—a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and quick hands. She glanced at Damien, then at me, and immediately moved to check the monitors.

“She’s fully conscious,” he told her. “But her voice...”

“Her vocal cords were damaged,” the nurse said gently. “There’s still swelling. It’ll take time before she regains speech—if at all. The doctors will explain everything.”

Everything.

I didn’t want everything.

I wanted Milo.

The nurse fussed over wires and IVs. Damien didn’t leave. He stood still, watching me like he didn’t trust the world to touch me again.

“You’ll need rest,” he said when the nurse left. “And time.”

Again, I did't want time.

I wanted Milo

I turned my head slightly. Even that hurt.

“You’re safe now. I’ll make sure you stay that way.”

Why?

Why would a stranger save me?

I blinked slowly. My eyes stung. My chest burned.

Milo. My baby. My joy. My shadow.

Gone.

I closed my eyes.

And wished the sea had taken me, too.

But it didn’t.

And that meant something.

It meant I was still here.

Which meant Ethan and Sienna hadn’t finished the job.

Which meant I still had something they didn’t expect me to have.

Time.

And vengeance.

Because ashes don’t bleed.

But they remember how to burn.