The Flower That Grew from Ashes novel Chapter 170

She began to notice that she no longer jolted awake in the middle of the night from blood-soaked nightmares.

She began to notice that her heart no longer seized up in panic when an ambulance siren wailed in the distance.

She even found that one day, when a dentist in a white coat came into the shop to buy flowers for his wife, she was able to smile and casually debate the merits of white calla lilies versus white lisianthus without her fingers trembling in the slightest.

Her body, breathing in the crisp, clean Scandinavian air, was slowly remembering what it felt like to be "safe."

But Annelise knew there was one wound that hadn't healed yet. It was merely masked temporarily by the endless daylight of summer.

She still couldn't fall asleep in complete darkness.

The moment she turned off all the lights and was swallowed by pitch-black nothingness, the terrifying sounds she had aggressively repressed deep within her memory would rush her from all sides like ghosts.

The sharp, ear-piercing clatter of cold metal surgical tools clashing on an operating tray.

The horrifying whistle of Lizzie Zucker's water-soaked leather whip slicing through the air in the bleak basement of the Lehman Estate.

And Clarissa Sherwood's seemingly gentle, harmless face hovering right by her ear, whispering the most vicious things through sweet breaths smelling of gardenia.

"Annelise, keeping you in the dark is the best way to protect you."

"All you have to do is be a good, obedient wife for the Lehman family."

These voices were like invisible, venomous thorns, flawlessly piercing her most fragile nerves in the dark.

Because of this, she still had to sleep with a small, dim, amber nightlight by her bed.

Only that faint glow offered her the illusion of safety she needed just to close her eyes.

That night, Annelise returned to her apartment after her language class.

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