LOGINHey my loves đ¤
I owe you an apology for going quiet for a while. I know the chapter updates havenât been as consistent as they should be, and I truly appreciate your patience with me.
Iâve been deep in preparation for my professional exams, and it took more time and focus than I expected. But Iâm happy to say Iâm back now fully present, fully energized, and ready to dive right back into the story with you.
Thank you for sticking with me, for your messages, your support, and for caring about this story as much as I do. It honestly means everything.
Weâre not slowing down anymore. More chapters are coming, and things are about to get even more intense đđĽ
Stay with me youâre going to love whatâs next.
With love,Mary đ¤
Three hours after the tracking messageOutside Lilaâs childhood home the drive back felt wrong from the second we made the decision as if the road itself knew.TomĂĄs kept checking the mirrors every few seconds, jaw tight, one hand on the wheel while the other rested near my leg like he needed to keep confirming I was still there.I couldnât stop staring at the GPS screen that at blinking red dot followed every turn we made.Every mile,every breath,still tracking still watching but after the last message something shifted in both of us.Because it sounded less like a threat now and more like an observation like someone recording results,testing outcomes,watching behaviors and I hated it but worse tyan that I understood it which felt somehow it felt more dangerous.âWe shouldnât go there,â I whispered eventuallyTomĂĄs didnât answer immediatelyThe city blurred past outside the windows, morning traffic building slowly around us ,People laughing walking their dogs,holding coffe cups and th
An hour after the explosion somewhere outside Porto the first stayed in my head long after we left it behind even now,even with miles between I could still see it everytime I blinked the truck slamming forward,the explosion behind vjcente,the way the flames lot up the fog like the whole morning had caught fire with it.Neither of us talked much after that TomĂĄs just drove faster than before one hand tight on the wheel,his jaw locked so hard I though he might crack a tooth.My daughter finally stopped crying about 20mins ago later,she was exhausted more than calm,she slept curled gains my chest while the road stretched endlessly in front of us ,I should've slept too,but every time I closed my eye s al I could see was those messages AGAIN ROUND TWO BEGINS like we just Like weâd survived something only to realize it was the easy part the city started appearing slowly around us just after sunrise, buildings,traffic people walking to work,living their normal life I almost forgot what normal
Seconds after the headlights came on Roadside gas station, early mornin nobody moved,not me not TomĂĄs not even the man standing outside the truck,like the world was holding it's breath at the exact same time ,the headlights from the truck cut across the front of our care,pale and cold in the early morning dog,I could barely make out the man properly at first just the shape of him standing there beside the open drivers door. He's tall,with a dark jacket on ,his hands empty and he was just ther watching us and that part scared me the most,not theessages,not even the house but this was someone real, someone who. Ould bleed,someone who could had been there long enough to wait for us my chest tightened har Dâdrive" I whimpered And tomĂĄs didn't even move âTomĂ s I called out to him I know" but his eyes stayed locked o the man He looked foxuse like he was thinking,the guy didn't approach the car ,he didn't wave and didn't threaten us he just stood there calmly like he already knew pa
Forty minutes after leaving the villaSomewhere outside the Douro ValleyThe silence shouldâve felt like a good thing It didnât,not after everything not after hours of screens flickering and messages appearing every time one of us breathed too hard.Now there was nothing ,no buzzing,no warnings,No rules And somehow that felt worse.TomĂĄs kept driving, both hands tight on the wheel, eyes fixed on the empty road ahead of us. The early morning light had fully broken through now, turning the hills gold in places, fog still sitting low between the vineyards,Pretty noormal.Completely wrong for what this felt likeI kept checking my phone even when I told myself not to.Blank screen.No new notifications,no unknown messages, nothing.Sofia slept quietly against my chest, tiny breaths warm through the blanket. Every couple seconds Iâd look down just to make sure.Still breathing,Still here.I hated that my brain needed to check.âYouâre doing it again,â TomĂĄs said quietly.I looked up âWhat?â
Minutes after the new ruleParked on an empty road outside the Douro ValleyNobody spoke for a while after that message.This round doesnât have walls.It stayed on my screen like it belonged there like it had always been waiting for us ,the sky was getting lighter now,pale blue pushing slowly through the dark hills around us,but somehow that made everything worse.Nothing looked dangerously anymore and that right there was the problem, everything looked normal,the road,the trees,the cold morning fog hanging low over the valley.Evn the car looked normal sitting infront of us but my body still felt wrong,like it remembered something my brain couldn't catch up to yet.My daughter mover against my chest her tiny fingers twitcbing under the blankey ,I looked immediately at her grounding myself again,still here,still breathing,still ours that thought hit differently now because for the first time since this started ,it felt like someone else was trying to make us forget that.TomĂ s slowly o
Minutes after leaving the villaDouro Valley road, just after sunrise For a few secondi it actually felt over not completel,not in a safe way but enough that my body didnât know what to do with it,The air outside was cold in a way that felt⌠real.not controlled not filtered it was just cold It hit my skin and stayed there instead of turning into something else that.i could breathe like I could actually breathe not shallow not carefully not even measured so something wouldn't react just..air in air out I didn't even realize how wrong it has been inside until that moment.Sofia moved in my arms making a small sound not crying just adjusting alive ,warm and real I pressed my cheek lightly against her head without thinking,grounding myself in that one thing that hasn't changed.We are outside I whispered my voice ce sounded strange like it hadn't been properly used in hours.TomĂ s didn't answer,he was still looking at the house not causally,not like he was checking behind him like he expect
The Greyhound from Portland to Chicago took twenty-nine hours and change.Time on a long-distance bus stretches in strange ways. Hours blur into one another until the road itself feels endless just a ribbon of dark highway under dim headlights, rest-stop signs glowing in the distance, and the stead
The cabin smelled of wet cedar and pine smoke. The wood stove crackled low, throwing orange flickers across the rough-hewn walls. Outside, the Gorge wind howled through the trees, rattling the single-pane windows, but inside the air felt thick, charged, like the moment before lightn
The city swallowed us at 7:14 a.m., gray light bleeding across the skyline like a bruise that hadnât decided what color it wanted to be. Everything looked tender. Raw. Buildings hunched against the cold dawn, windows reflecting a sky that couldnât quite commit to morning.Julian didnât take us to t
.The highway just kept going.Like it didnât care about us at all.An endless black strip under the tires, stretching forward forever, the headlights barely touching it, like we werenât really on the road, just floating over it. I didnât know where we were going.







