Chapter 205

The Predator

Pain.

A dull, all-consuming, marrow-deep kind of agony. A weight crushing my ribs, pressing down on my chest like a tombstone with my name carved into it. My body was screaming, burning, suffocating—but it wasn’t real, was it? I was dead. I should be dead. I was dead.

My eyes ripped open, but the world was wrong. Blurred. A smear of light and shadows, like oil on water. Like blood on snow. My chest heaved. My breath came out jagged, a torn-up thing, ragged edges and no relief. The walls shifted. The ceiling pulsed. There was noise—distant, distorted, like voices underwater.

I tried to move. Regret followed instantly. Fuck. Pain lashed through my body so viciously, unrelentingly, and my stomach churned like I was still drowning like the ocean hadn’t finished with me yet.

My heart slammed against my ribs. No, no, no, no.

"Ptichka," I rasped. Or maybe I just thought it. I wasn’t sure if my lips even moved. "Wher