bChapter /bb250 /b

    “Then it means they didn’t survive,” Ashton finished bluntly, his voice devoid of any softness.

    The room seemed to shrink around me, and suddenly, the air felt suffocating. I had stepped into something much bigger than I realized. Something I wasn’t sure I could escape.

    The air is thick with the damp stench of the underground, the cold seeping into my bones as I press my back against the stone wall, trying to calm the tremor in my hands. My breathes in short, uneven gasps, my heart hammering so loudly I swear they can hear it. My voice is barely above a whisper when I ask, “Are we going to survive this?”

    Silence hangs heavy between us, thick and suffocating. For a moment, I think they won’t answer, that maybe they don’t have the strength to say it out loud. But then, the truthes, raw and unfiltered.

    “We don’t know.” The words fall from their lips like dead weight, cold and final.

    I swallow hard, looking between them, searching their faces for any sign of hope, anything to grasp onto. But all I find is exhaustion, the kind that settles into a person’s bones after too long in the dark. “Since the day we were taken,” they continue, their voice steady despite the bleakness of their words, “we’ve been on edge, waiting for it to end. Every second, every breath, we thought it would be ourst.”

    My stomach twists violently. I knew things were bad, but hearing it spoken aloud, feeling the certainty in their voices–it feels like something inside me is unraveling. I shake my head, my throat tightening. “No. No, there has to be a way out. There has to be-”

    Augh, soft and humorless, cuts me off. They don’t believe it. Maybe they can’t afford to.

    But then, there’s Lucas.

    He stands apart from the rest of us, and despite the filth and the darkness, there’s something different about him tonight. Something that makes my skin crawl. His posture is wrong–too rxed, too at ease, like he’s already won some invisible battle.

    J

    I don’t understand. None of this should make him happy. None of us should have any reason to be happy. But today, at the dining table, he seemed ecstatic.

    i“/iSomething’s changed in him,” I whisper, more to myself than to them.

    They nod. “He’s been waiting for something. Holding onto it. And now that you’re here…” Their voices trail offb, /bbut I know what they mean. Whatever Lucas has been waiting for, whatever twisted n he’s been building towards–it hinges on me.

    “And tomorrow is the total sr eclipse.” Ashton says finally, his voice leaning on exhaustion. “Something…whatever it is that is supposed to happen, it’s going to happen tomorrow.”

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    3:24 pm

    “Why?” I asked. “What’s so special about a sr eclipse?”

    “Witches draw energy from natural sources, like the sun and the earth.” Maggie exined. “But during a total Sr Eclipse, the sun is blocked out by the moon, and that’s when a dark witch’s power is at its strongest. If I had to bet, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that Harmona and Lucas are dark witches.”

    A shiver ran through my body at the mention of dark witches. I had no idea what they were, still a novice to the supernatural world, but the way they said it, it couldn’t mean anything good.

    Finally, the both got up from the bed, heading towards the door. “We need to go now.” Ashton said before they left. “Rest up, because we don’t know what tomorrow may bring. And if I were you Aurora…I’d expect

    the worst.”

    With that, they both slipped out of the door, and it clicked shut silently after them, leaving me in the darkness of the room and the prisoner to my own swirling thoughts.

    And tomorrow… Tomorrow is the total sr eclipse.

    The realization ms into me like a physical force, and for the first time since I woke up in this hell, I feel it–the suffocating weight of inevitability. Whatever ising, whatever Lucas has nned, it’s already in motion. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

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