Chapter 70

Isabella

I did not sleep. I tried, but I just couldn’t. Sleep was hard to come by, and harder when I remembered where I was and how unsafe the walls and air began to feel.

I pulled the blankets up to my chin, pressed my eyes shut, counted backwards from a hundred, but every time I came close, the sound of Papa’s voice would crawl back through my memory.

“They threatened Leo” would echo in my head, and I’d hear my heart beat faster and faster. But whenever I tried to shut my eyes, hoping to shut out the sounds my body made, the pictures would flash in my mind again, and the uncertainty of where I was in all of this. And suddenly, I’d be wide awake again, my breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat.

It was strange how silence could feel so loud. The whole house had fallen into stillness, a suffocating kind of quiet, but not even enough for my mind. It just wouldn’t stop running.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling for what felt