The mornings were starting to betray me.
At first, I thought it was just the adjustment — the heat, the new time zone, the simple food. I'd spent weeks running on adrenaline, on planning, on escape. Maybe my body was just crashing after it all.
But today, when I woke up to the smell of the ocean drifting through the open window, the nausea came fast. No warning. No cause.
I barely made it to the tiny bathroom in time.
I stayed hunched over the sink for minutes afterward, heart pounding, skin clammy, trying to breathe through the tight knot in my stomach.
By the time I stood up, I looked pale. Ghostly.
Just exhaustion, I told myself. Stress.
Except it wasn't just today.
It wasn't just the nausea.
I was tired — bone deep. And not the kind of tired that sleep fixed. Every time I walked to the market or climbed the two flights of stairs to my apartment, my body felt heavier than it used to. Like it was dragging something invisible behind it.
I'd snapped at the woman at the bakery yesterday just because she handed me the wrong bread.
And when I cried later — alone on my little balcony with the too-sweet roll untouched in front of me — it wasn't because of the bread. It was because I didn't feel like myself.
I hadn't, for days.
I pressed a hand to my lower stomach now, frowning slightly. It felt… nothing. No pain. No obvious cause. Just unfamiliar.
I hadn't had time to think about my body during the chaos of leaving. I hadn't tracked anything. My period was always a little irregular anyway.
Still.
There was this lingering weight in me that wouldn't go away. A buzzing in my chest I couldn't quiet.
I lay back down on the bed, watching the sunlight trace across the cracked ceiling, and tried to breathe through it.
You're safe, I reminded myself. You're far away. You're free.
But the words rang hollow this time.
Something wasn't right.
Not in the "Dominic might find me" way.
In the "my body is trying to tell me something and I'm not listening" kind of way.
I closed my eyes and pressed the heels of my hands into them until colors exploded behind my lids. The tears weren't far, but I refused to let them fall again.
I didn't come here to fall apart.
I came here to rebuild.
But as I curled into the thin sheets and pulled the blanket up to my chin, a deep, quiet fear crept up the back of my neck.
Something was changing.
And I didn't know what it meant yet.
But soon… I would.