C23 TWENTY THREE: ….Does it ever end?

Cily

"Come. We need to talk," he repeated, his words coiling around me like some rope that slowly tightens. He didn't give me the option of refusing.

Before I could process anything, I was following him down the path toward a black car waiting by the curb, its doors held open like it had been expecting me.

I slid into the passenger seat as my mind whirled