She laughed. “You keep telling yourself that.”
I glared. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you look like you’re seeing things too,” she said. “Your eyes keep… flicking. Like you’re tracking something I can’t see.”
My throat tightened.
I forced a shrug. “It’s nothing.”
She stared at me for a long moment, and I hated how much she could read when she stopped yelling and started watching.
“Who are you seeing?” she asked quietly.
My father’s face flashed in my mind, clear as day. The way his mouth twisted when he drank. The way his eyes would go flat before he hit me. The way he’d grip my shoulder hard enough to bruise and tell me who I was allowed to hate.
I swallowed hard. “No one.”
Amelia’s gaze softened just a fraction. “Caiden.”
Hearing my name from her mouth did something to me. It always had. Even when we were kids. Even when we were enemies.
“Stop,” I warned.
She took a step closer. “I’m not your enemy out here. I don’t trust you, but I’mnot your enemy.”
“Yes, you are,” I snapped, because it was easier than admitting the truth.
Her face hardened again. “Fine. Keep being alone in your head. See how that goes.”
She turned away and started walking again, shoulders hunched, jaw set, like she was daring the world to break her.
I followed, because I didn’t have a choice.
Because as much as I wanted to hate her, I couldn’t let her walk off alone. Not out here. Not when she was hallucinating. Not when I could barely trust my own eyes.
The forest swallowed us.
We moved through brush and fallen branches, crunching over dead leaves. The ground sloped upward, then flattened, then dipped again. Every ridge looked like the last ridge. Every clearing felt like a trick.
Time out here didn’t move normally. It stretched and warped. Minutes felt like hours. Hours disappeared entirely.
My stomach cramped so hard I had to stop and press a fist into my abdomen, breathing through it. Hunger was a living thing inside me, gnawing and snarling. It made my vision tunnel. It made my hands shake.
Amelia stopped a few paces ahead and looked back, irritation flaring. “What now?”
“Nothing,” I lied.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re going to collapse.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re not special,” she snapped. “You can’t just will your body into working.”
I laughed under my breath. “Watch me.”
She stared at me like she wanted to hate me but didn’t have the energy.
We kept moving. At some point, the wind shifted, and I heard it.
