Seraphina's Point Of View
The moment the heavy oak doors clicked shut behind me, the air in the foyer felt ten degrees cooler and infinitely less suffocating. I leaned my back against the cool stone wall, my heart still performing a frantic tap-dance against my ribs. The chill of the stone seeped through my shirt, grounding me in the present moment.
Leaving my mother alone with Charles… my father, god, that word still felt like a glitch in the matrix, felt like abandoning a lit match in a room full of gasoline. I released a breath so long and shaky it sounded like a deflating balloon, my shoulders sagging with the weight of everything that had happened.
"You look like you just went twelve rounds with a ghost and the ghost won," a voice chirped from the shadows.
