Semua Bab Till The End of The World : Bab 31 - Bab 35

CLARA It turns out inventory work is less terrible than I expected. Not exciting and fun. Not at all. But not terrible too, since I'm not the one doing the heavy work. For the last hour I've been moving through the warehouse with a tablet in one hand and a growing understanding of why Stefan called me an idiot in the other. Never tell him that. I'm currently seated behind a wooden desk that's been shoved between two shelves of inventory records. Someone thoughtfully left me a chair too. Every shipment that arrives gets checked. Every crate gets counted and every supplier gets recorded too. The air smells like flour, grain, wood, and enough spices to make me hungry. A worker drops another inventory sheet onto my desk, with a little too much force for the poor paper. I see, we're both unhappy about this arrangement. "Twenty-seven." He grumbles. I glance down. "Twenty-eight." The worker frowns, a second later I realize I'm reading the wrong row. Fantastic. "It's

CLARA. I turn slowly to see Emma standing at the entrance, perfectly composed, perfectly clean, not a single speck of flour on her. Her cream dress falls in smooth lines to her ankles, her dark hair pinned neatly in place, and beside her one of the maids clutches a tablet to her chest, looking about three seconds away from fainting. Silence crashes over the warehouse so hard even the carts have stopped rattling. Flour still flies in the air, drifting through the shafts of sunlight, and somewhere behind me somebody coughs into the sudden quiet. Emma's eyes sweep over the warehouse once, taking in the overturned sacks, the white footprints, and the workers suddenly pretending none of it exists, before finally stopping on a very white-looking Evan. “What,” she asks again, her voice soft and sharp at the same time, “is happening here?” I glance around and find everyone frozen, one man still clutching a handful of flour like he forgot how hands work, another halfway behind a shel

EMMA. I wake before I fully open my eyes, strong footsteps reaching me first. A second later, his scent finds me. Smoke. Leather. Pine. And beneath it all, something unmistakably him. Even half asleep, I know exactly who stands outside that door. The handle clicks softly, wood moving against carpet as the door opens, and a thin strip of light slices through the dark room. The steady thud of his heart reaches me through the quiet, strong and unhurried, beneath the low hum of the air conditioner. Slowly, I open my eyes. He stands in the doorway, one hand still wrapped around the handle, broad shoulders outlined by the light behind him. His gaze sweeps over the room before finally coming to rest on me. For a moment, neither of us moves. The room remains still, filled only with the quiet rhythm of two hearts beating in the dark, until there's a faintest change in his. And suddenly, I'm wide awake. “What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice even, though not surprised as he clos