OLEANDER
My eyes flew open as a hand pressed over them.
I jolted upright in bed, staring at the wrinkled old woman seated beside me.
My heart pounded violently against my ribs, my breath shallow as my gaze darted from her to the room around me.
This wasn't the jail.
I remembered everything—Hex breaking in, rescuing me, promising I would be safe. But I didn't remember coming here.
And I certainly didn't remember this woman being with him.
My jaw slackened as she jumped down from the bed and shuffled toward the red leather couch in the center of the room.
She looked to be in her eighties. Frail. The kind of elderly woman who should have been bedridden.
Yet she moved with unsettling ease.
Worse, I could feel it—strength radiating from her. Not physical strength alone, but something deeper. Something ancient.
Like she had more years ahead of her than the ones etched across her wrinkled skin.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice trembling despite my effort to steady it.
