I grab my keys.
The elevator ride feels like I’m sneaking out of detention. My pulse is way too high for a grocery run. By the time I hit the street, the Vegas heat smacks me like a hair dryer to the face. Normal. So normal it almost makes me dizzy.
I tighten my grip on my bag until the strap bites into my palm. Look left, then right—like I’m in some spy thriller, checking for tails. Nobody’s there. Just a couple arguing outside a coffee shop, some kid skateboarding past, the usual Vegas chaos. Still, I check again.
The watch Anton strapped on me glints in the sun, the matching bracelet snug around my wrist. Both expensive, both heavy. Both bugs.
I can practically hear his voice in my head:Don’t take them off.
Great. So not only am I sneaking out, I’m sneaking out under surveillance. Which means if he’s listening right now, he already knows I’m breaking the unspoken rules. And if he isn’t listening? That’s worse.
I swallow hard, twisting the bracelet like I might pry it off. I don’t.
My old building is only fifteen minutes away by bus. Twenty-minute walk. I could grab the cat food on the way back and pick up my books.
It’s not rebellion, I tell myself as I wait for the bus. It’s practical.
But when the doors open and I climb the steps, something loosens in my chest that I didn’t realize was knotted tight.
For the first time in days, I’m not being watched.
Or so I think.
The ride passes in a blur of familiar stops and faces. When I finally climb the stairs to my old apartment, the building smells like it always has, cleaning products and other people’s cooking, and something vaguely chemical from the laundry room. Home.
Except it doesn’t feel likehomeanymore.
Everything looks smaller. Darker. Like I’ve been living in someone else’s life and just remembered what mine looked like.
I unlock the door.
The smell hits before the sight does.
Cologne. Too much. The one that used to stick to my pillow long after Evan left, back when that felt like comfort. Now it just smells like a warning.
My chest tightens.
I freeze, hand still on the doorknob.
Then: “There you are.”
His voice.
Evan steps out of my bedroom like he owns it. Hair mussed, shirt wrinkled, that smirk sharp enough to slice skin.
My stomach drops to the floor.
33
Mary
Idon’t move. I don’t breathe.
Evan leans his shoulder against my bedroom doorframe like it’s a Casual Friday and he just wandered in from the kitchen. He’s got that soft-eyed look that used to read “sweet” before I learned it meant nothing. There’s a fading split on his lip—Boris’s work—and a yellow bruise peeking under stubble. He notices me noticing and tips his chin like a dare.
“Yeah,” he says. “Your boyfriend hits like a truck.”
“He’s not my—” I start, then stop. My throat closes on the lie.
