And all I can do is fucking pray that I’m not too late.
30 minutes earlier
I’m a burning ember against the stillness of the night, drifting through the dark as waves crash against the recesses of my mind. Through the fog, my hand reaches out on instinct, brushing over soft silk sheets. The sensation blurs into something dreamlike—like dragging my fingers through warm sand while silver moonlight spills lazily across my body.
A vibration ripples through me, trying to pull me up, shake me awake, but I’m buried too deep in the quiet warmth of my own consciousness to care. A chill folds over my skin, an invisible hand tugging at me, trying to drag me back to the waking world. I push against it, exhausted, resisting every yankat my awareness, refusing to let it tear me from the fragile embrace of sleep.
I want to stay here. Just a little longer. I want the stillness, the warmth, the soft, forgiving sand beneath me.
Because waking means thinking. Waking means wondering what I need to do to survive the next hour, the next day, the next blow.
And I don’t want that. I just want to linger in my comfort-dream, where the world is warm and silent, and nothing demands anything of me.
But the vibration keeps returning, rolling through my bones, rattling faintly against the cage of my ribs. A soft pressure curls around my hand, grounding me. Through the haze of sleep, I see Dante lying with his head on my lap. His hand tightens around mine, desperate, terrified I might slip through his fingers like the sand beneath us.
“I couldn’t make her stop.”
The words strike me like a punch. Bile rises in my throat, and tears sting my eyes as my mind replays that single sentence on a loop. It ricochets inside my skull, striking every bruised part of me, each repetition stroking the growing fire in my chest.
“You are safe,”I whisper in the memory—my voice soft, steady, but painfully inadequate. Because comfort can’t erase scars. The weight of what happened will never disappear for him. It will cling to him like a dark passenger, whispering venom into the back of his mind.
I know. Because I have one too.
But mine dissolves into nothing when I’m with Dante. He shines a light into the cracks I’ve spent my life hiding. He touches my jaggedness without bleeding. And I want to do the same for him.
I wrap my arms around him in the memory, a protective cage of limbs and warmth, holding him tight against me. He meltsinto the embrace, soaking in the heat of my body, needing it as much as I do.
Slowly, painfully, I pry my eyes open. A sting of discomfort pulses through them, the thick blur of dried tears sealing my lashes together. My hand drags across my face, smearing the wetness into streaks across my cheeks.
The salt lingers on my lips. It always does. My grief has lived on my tongue far longer than most people have lived in my life.
When I manage to fully force my eyes open, pain lances through my skull. I groan and sweep my hand across the bed again, expecting, hoping,needingto find the warmth of his skin.
Instead, my fingers meet cold silk. I search further, my heart thudding harder, but all I find is the vast chill of untouched sheets where his body should be.
Blinking through the heaviness of sleep, I push myself up onto an elbow, my eyes dragging across the empty space beside me. A fresh wave of tears surges up my throat. I swallow it down just as the vibration that appeared morphs into a dull ache of awareness.
Something woke me.
The dread that curls through me is instant, sharp, and crystal clear. I blink, confirming Dante isn’t here, and brush my palms against the silk, fisting it and wrinkling it in my hand.
Through the discomfort, I turn around, snatching my phone from the table and squinting against the harsh glow as I unlock the screen.
No messages.
Unease coils low in my gut, twisting tight, and I press Contacts, calling him without a second thought. My teeth catch the corner of my mouth as I hold the phone to my ear.
The ringing starts, and some time passes before I realize he won’t pick up.
Heat sparkles under my skin as panic licks to life, and it takes me a few moments to remember that I have his location connected to my phone. We decided it would be safer to have each other’s locations, especially after my last encounter with the new handler.
Clicking the app, I wait for it to load, impatience coiling inside me like a persistent buzz.
I frown when the map opens, revealing a pin dropped on an unnamed building roughly twenty minutes from our hotel. I stare at it, unfamiliar with the location.
The panic swells, stretching sharp and wide. Whatever exhaustion clung to me evaporates as my pulse slams against my ribs, and a thin sheen of sweat gathers along my brow.
If something’s happened to him…
