The police station smelled like old coffee and toner. A heavy silence hung in the air.
Evelyn Carter sat frozen in the hard chair, her knuckles white as she gripped her trembling hands in her lap. Across the desk, the officer spoke in a gentle but firm tone, each word hitting her like a blow.
"We've confirmed everything," he said. "You went missing five years ago during a medical aid mission. Two years ago, your husband filed for a death certificate and had you removed from the household registry."
He paused.
"We contacted him, but Evelyn, you need to prepare yourself. He's remarried."
Evelyn couldn't respond. It felt as if someone had pressed pause on her mind, the words registering in slow motion. Remarried?
Five years earlier, she had been abducted during a humanitarian mission in the Middle East. Captured by insurgents, she endured unimaginable horrors in the desert before peacekeepers rescued her just months ago.
What kept her alive through those endless nights of fear wasn't hope. It was her husband, Adrian Carter.
They had fallen in love during their first year of college. From late-night study sessions to graduating hand-in-hand, they shared every season of their youth. They married right after graduation. He had been her safe harbor, her everything.
She had dreamed of their reunion countless times. She imagined running into his arms, both crying, filled with joy. Never had she thought she would be told he had moved on. That someone else had taken her place.
Outside the police station, spring had arrived in Havenport. The trees rustled gently in the breeze. Sunlight streamed through the window like liquid gold, but Evelyn barely felt it.
Her hand reached up instinctively, fingers brushing against the glass as if she could catch a piece of warmth to thaw the ice in her chest.
The trauma she endured left scars deeper than the skin. Since her rescue, she hadn't spoken a word. Doctors called it selective mutism, caused by prolonged emotional and psychological stress.
Yet, the day she was found, she had wept like a child. She thought everything would be okay when she saw Adrian again. That he would gather her in his arms, kiss her scars, and make the nightmares stop.
But reality didn't offer comfort.
It offered a slap in the face.
He had declared her dead in the third year of her disappearance.
And remarried not long after.
The door burst open with a loud sound.
A tall man rushed in, his movements frantic and his eyes wild until they landed on her. In that moment, all the urgency faded, replaced by deep sorrow.
"Eve…" he whispered, his voice cracking.
Adrian.
He looked just as she remembered—except for the faint creases at the corners of his eyes and the maturity in the way he stood. His tailored suit fit perfectly over his broad shoulders. The luxury watch on his wrist gleamed in the sunlight.
Life hadn't been hard for him without her.
Her lips parted, wanting to speak, to ask why, but no sound came out.
If no one had told her, Evelyn might have believed he was still the man she loved. Still, the man who would move heaven and earth for her.
He stepped closer, torn between restraint and longing. "You've been through so much. Let me take you home."
Home. Was that word still hers?
She didn't move. She just stared.
"Eve, please," Adrian crouched beside her, his voice soft, almost pleading. "It's over now. You're safe. Come back with me."
Tears welled in her eyes.
She wanted to believe he still loved her. That the man who once climbed a mountain before dawn just to hang a love lock with her name on it hadn't abandoned her.
That everything—those vows, those memories—wasn't lies.
"She's suffered severe trauma and hasn't spoken since the rescue," the officer explained quietly behind him. "We suspect it's PTSD-related mutism."
Adrian's jaw clenched. He took her hand and held it gently.
She let him.
Like a ghost following its last tie to the living, Evelyn allowed him to lead her out of the station.
She thought she had left hell behind.
But she realized hell wasn't a place. It was returning to a world that had erased her.
"I'll take you to a hotel first," Adrian said quietly. "A lot has changed. I think it'll be better if we ease into things."
Evelyn pulled out the notepad the doctors had given her, writing in bold, shaky letters:
TAKE ME HOME.
Adrian stiffened.
Home.
The place that held their wedding photos. The sofa where they curled up watching terrible sitcoms. The kitchen where she burned pancakes on Sunday mornings just to hear him laugh.
It was their place.
Adrian hesitated. The silence stretched until it stung.
"I'm sorry, Eve. I am."
Her heart, already fragile, trembled violently.
Even on the battlefield—when bullets whizzed past her ears—she hadn't felt fear like this.
Adrian's voice dropped to a whisper. "You were gone for so long. Everyone thought… we all thought you had died. I remarried. My wife and daughter live there now. I can't just uproot them."
Thump. Thump.
She felt it. Her heart. Beating desperately. Then suddenly—
It stopped.