Raya only woke up late in the afternoon, when the golden sunlight had already begun to slant through the tall windows of the mansion, casting long, warm shadows across the room.
After the water, after the painkillers and gentle medication Derek had carefully administered, her battered body had finally surrendered to exhaustion. The sleep that followed wasn't peaceful or restorative. It was heavy, suffocating, and draining, the kind that felt more like sinking into dark, murky waters than true rest. Nightmares flickered at the edges of her subconscious: the sound of gunshots, Varek's twisted smile, the sharp pain of loss, Adrian's distant eyes. She tossed and turned, trapped between consciousness and oblivion.
When her eyes finally fluttered open, everything felt slow and distant, as if the world was moving through thick fog. Her body ached with a deep, bone-weary soreness. For a moment, she simply lay there, blinking against the soft light, trying to remember where she was.
