imed by My Bully Alpha

    bChapter /bb249 /b

    Aurora’s P.O.V

    “Ashton, how can you say that?” My voice trembled, the weight of his words pressing against my chest like a slow, suffocating force. “Hope is the only thing keeping us alive.” My hands clenched at my sides, my breath uneven. How could he even think of giving up now? After everything we had been through, after everything we had to survive till this day, he was just going to let despair take over?

    Ashton exhaled sharply, running a hand through his disheveled hair, his expression caught between frustration and exhaustion. “Aurora, hope doesn’t change reality. It doesn’t stop what’s happening.” His voice was low, raw, like he was barely holding himself together. “We keep telling ourselves things will get better, that this is just another nightmare we’ll wake up from, but it’s not. This–this is real.” He gestured vaguely around us, at the dimly lit walls that seemed to press closer with every passing second. “And I don’t know how much longer we can pretend we’re okay.”

    A chill swept through the room, and I opened my mouth to argue, to tell him he was wrong, that we had to believe in something–anything–because the alternative was too terrifying. But before I could speak, Maggie’s voice cut through the heavy silence.

    “I don’t know how long we can stay alive,” she murmured, her arms wrapped around herself as if trying to ward off a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature. “Something is really, really wrong.”

    I turned to her, my heart pounding faster. “Maggie, what do you mean?b” /b

    She hesitated, her fingers digging into her sleeves, eyes darting towards the shadows stretching across the walls. “Sincest night, I’ve been hearing things.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Through the walls. Strange noises, like–like the house itself is crying.” She swallowed hard, her throat bobbing with the effort. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s getting worse.”

    A shiver ran down my spine. I had felt it too–the unnatural stillness, the way the air inside the house felt thicker, heavier, like we were being watched. But hearing Maggie say it out loud made it real. I nced at Ashton, searching for reassurance, for any sign that he would tell us we were imagining things, that there was a logical exnation. But he just stood there, his jaw tight, his eyes dark with something I couldn’t quite ce.

    For the first time since this nightmare began, I wasn’t sure if hope was enough.

    bI /bsat there, my mind buzzing with unspoken thoughts as Ashton leaned forward, his voice dropping into something almost conspiratorial.

    “I’m the only full witch here besides Harmona and Lucas,” he admitted, his gaze steady on me as if trying to gauge my reaction. “And I swear, Aurora, the moment you stepped into this house… something shifted, It’s like-” he hesitated, searching for the right words. “It’s like the air got heavier, like something is waiting to happen. Something big.”

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    3:24 pm

    His words settled ufortably in my chest. The way he said it, with so much certainty, made my skin prickle. I nced at Maggie, hoping for an answer she didn’t have, before finally letting out the question that had been gnawing at me since we got here. “Then why us? Why were we the only ones chosen? Why our mothers?” My voice was quieter than I expected, but the weight of my own thoughts pressed down on me. “Lucas didn’t just take anyone–he targeted them for a reason. Didn’t he?”

    Maggie exhaled, arms crossed tightly over her chest as if holding herself together. “We’ve been thinking about that,” she admitted, exchanging a look with Ashton before turning back to me. “At first, we thought maybe it was about power–hybrids from different races, gathering us because we’re… different. But it’s not just that, Aurora. There’s something bigger going on. Something we don’t know yet.”

    Her voice wavered on thatst part, and I could hear the fearced beneath her words. It wasn’t just spection. She believed it.

    Maggie nodded, her expression grim. “Lucas has been doing this for longer than we thought. We don’t know how many. We don’t know what happened to them. But if he’s still doing it—”

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