The sheer mental toll of the day’s horrors began to settle over her like a heavy cloak. The adrenaline that had sustained her through the fight, the capture, and the confrontation was finally evaporating, leaving behind a hollow, aching fatigue.
Elena yawned, her jaw aching. Her mind was a frayed tapestry of questions without answers and fears without faces. She couldn't fight the ship, she couldn't fight Kai, and she certainly couldn't fight the ghost of Flynt Locke—at least not tonight.
She rolled onto her right side, curling her knees toward her chest in a protective ball. The rhythmic vibration of the ship acted as a dark lullaby, pulling her down into the depths of a dreamless stupor. As her eyes finally drifted shut, the last thing she felt was the crushing weight of her own exhaustion, a temporary mercy that promised to drown out the world until morning.
