It felt like my heart stopped beating.

“No… you can’t…”

“I already have.”

Everything inside me shattered.

“You didn’t even tell me?” I gasped.

“I am telling you now.”

“Where is he?”

“Gone.”

I don’t remember screaming.

But I remember the pain in my throat.

I remember trying to stand—failing—falling from the wheelchair onto the cold floor.

I remember clawing at the carpet like I could somehow pull him back through sheer will.

“You don’t understand!” I cried. “You’re killing him!”

“He’ll survive,” my father replied. “Men like him always do.”

“And what about me?” I whispered.

He didn’t answer.

Because he already knew.

That night, I didn’t sleep.

I replayed everything.

His voice.

His hands.

The way he said my name—Elellanar—like it mattered.

And then I realized something.

They took him without a fight.

But Josiah… was not a man who gave up.

If he didn’t resist…

It was because he didn’t want me to be punished.

That thought changed everything.

By morning, I was no longer the same woman.

The girl who accepted her fate.

The daughter who obeyed.

The “burden.”

She was gone.

In her place…

was someone dangerous.

I started quietly.

Carefully.

I smiled at my father during breakfast.

I spoke normally.

I acted… obedient.

And he believed it.

That was his mistake.

At night, I prepared.

I counted money.

I hid small valuables inside the lining of my wheelchair.

I memorized names.

Routes.

Places.

I listened to servants whisper about northern contacts… safe houses… people who helped slaves escape.

I learned something else too:

People underestimated me.

Because I couldn’t walk.

Because I was “harmless.”

That became my greatest weapon.

Weeks passed.

Then one night… I left.

No servants saw me go.

No doors creaked.

No alarms were raised.

I rolled silently through the halls that had once been my prison… and my home.

At the front door, I stopped.

Just for a second.

This was everything I had ever known.

And I was about to abandon it… for something uncertain.

Dangerous.

Possibly deadly.