Avery's POV
I was still in the room I had been provided earlier, it had been hours since Dylan left. And though I physically felt better, I hadn't been able to sleep. I had been here long enough to feel the weight of each passing minute, the silence pressing in like a heavy, suffocating blanket.
My body still ached from the earlier treatment, my injuries a constant reminder of the brutality I'd endured. But now, it wasn't the physical pain that gnawed at me; it was the uncertainty, the nagging feeling that I was caught in something much bigger than I understood.
Dylan had been so kind, so unnervingly kind, and I didn't trust it. I couldn't. People like him, people with that much power weren't generous without reason. There was always an agenda. Always.