CHAPTER 39

The sun dipped lower on the horizon, stretching shadows across the fractured asphalt like fingers reaching for something they would never grasp. My fever blurred everything—the world around me smudged, its edges bleeding into one another. The throbbing pain in my leg was relentless, each step a cruel reminder that I wasn't built for this.

A brutal, unyielding truth: I wasn't cut out for this.

Not for this broken world, where survival meant more than just breathing. Where the rules had changed, and I was always a step behind, paying for it in blood and misery.

"Keep walking," Alex said, his voice sharp.

I flinched, nodding automatically. Obedient. Always. Fucking. Obedient.

Because my life rested in his hands, and if he so much as decided I wasn't worth the trouble, I would be gone—snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

But was that really something to fear?