Good.
I reach for my camera, angle it just right, and snap a photo.
One. Two. Three.
The sound is quiet, but she stirs again, and I retreat, setting the camera down long enough to pull something from my pocket.
A small, glossy photograph.
I want her to see it. The way she looked at me that night at Poor Choices—eyes locked on mine, pupils blown wide,breath caught in her throat. The moment she knew what we were.
I lay it carefully on her nightstand, positioned so she’ll see it the second she wakes up.
A reminder.
A gift.
A promise.
Then I slip back into the shadows, leaving her apartment exactly as I found it.
Except for the picture.
And the certainty that I was here.
CHAPTER 10
Willow
I wake up slowly,my body reluctant to pull itself from the heavy, suffocating fog of sleep. Everything feels wrong. Too quiet. Too still.
Then the ache sets in.
Not just in my muscles—though they ache as if I’ve been run over—but deep inside me. A raw, hollow emptiness, something once stitched into my very being now ripped away, leaving nothing but exposed nerve endings in its wake.
Landon’s mark.
It’s gone.
A choked breath rattles out of me as I push up on weak limbs, my fingers trembling as they rise to my neck. The skin is bare, smooth where his claim used to be. No raised edges, no sign it was ever there—except for the dull, lingering burn beneath my skin. The ghost of something that should have lasted forever.
A wave of nausea rolls over me, my stomach twisting, grief and anger curling inside my ribs, suffocating and thick. I hate this. I hate him.
I hate that he let me go. That he never even tried to fight for me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shove down the bitter sting, but my chest tightens. The pain and loss, it’s too much. I let out a slow, shaky breath, pressing my palm against the ache in my sternum as if that could somehow hold me together.
I refuse to break for him. Not again. Not when I barely survived it the first time. My fingers slide from my throat to my lap, and that’s when I see it.
A photo. Face-up on my nightstand.
My breath catches. My pulse slams into a sprint as I reach for it with stiff fingers, flipping it toward me.
I recognize the moment instantly. Poor Choices. The night at the bar. The way I looked at him.
The exact second my body reacted before my brain caught up, before I shoved the awareness down and let my usual bravado take over. But in this picture, the moment is frozen. My parted lips, my wide eyes, the way I looked at him like he was something worth wanting. Finn was here.
I inhale sharply, scanning the room for any other sign of his presence, any other mark of his intrusion. But I don’t need one. The picture is enough. He was here. Watching me. Close enough to touch.
