BOUND BY SHADOWS

Emilia's POV

The room is dark; the flickering flame creates shadows dancing across the old walls. Enzo's stare on me weighs me, his presence overpowering yet constant. Between us, dense with unsaid words, my chest constricts. The events of the last hours spin in my head, every one a new wound.

With a low, gruff voice that slices through the tension like a razor, he adds, "You're too close to the edge, Emilia." His eyes blaze with something I can't quite identify: perhaps both wrath and terror. "You will kill yourself if you keep pushing like this."

"Better me than someone else," I say, my voice shaking even if I try to seem robust. Enzo, I cannot sit here and do nothing. Not when— "

He steps closer, snapping, "Not when what?" "When all of this is collapsing? When we outmanoeuvred and were outnumbered? You believe plunging oneself into the fire would solve that?