It was oxygen.
No club gate.
No prospects shadowing me between buildings.
No Edge telling me I couldn’t go somewhere because he had a bad feeling.
No men with guns making every decision feel like it had to pass through a committee of leather and trauma.
I loved them.
That was the worst part.
I loved Edge. I loved Regan. I loved Tarak, even when his grief sat between us like a third person at every table.
But love could still suffocate.
I opened my closet.
The leather jacket hung in the back behind sweaters and school dresses. It wasn’t mine exactly. Regan had bought it for me last Christmas after I accused her of trying to dress me like a polite hostage. It was black, soft, fitted, and dangerous enough that Edge had stared at it for a full ten seconds before saying, “No.”
Regan had handed it to me anyway.
I put it on now.
Then black jeans. Boots. Silver hoops. Dark eyeliner smudged at the corners because if they wanted to call me trash, I might as well make it fashionable.
Last, I unbraided my hair and let it fall wild around my shoulders.
Mandy’s hair.
My jaw tightened.
No.
Mine.
I grabbed my phone and texted the only people who wouldn’t tell me I was being stupid because they were probably already worse.
You in town yet?
A reply came from Tris first.
Already here, princesa. Your fancy people ready to die?
Then Jake.
Tell me we’re not doing something that gets me shot by your dad.
Then Naya.
We are absolutely doing something that gets him shot by her dad.
They were my friends from back home. From before Santa Fe. From dust roads, aunties who knew everything, fry bread after ceremonies, cousins who weren’t really cousins, and people who understood silence without trying to fill it. They had come in for graduation and were staying with family outside town.
They knew me before Rourke meant anything.
Before Mandy’s ghost got loud.
