SERENA'S POV
The call had just ended and I was still holding onto my phone like it was a live wire. Liana's voice echoed in my mind, low, controlled, but wound tight with fear. She was afraid, and if Liana was afraid, then that meant the rest of us had something to be afraid of.
I was motionless for a moment, the gravity of the conversation settling like a chilly mist upon my shoulders. Outside, streetlights began to twinkle on, casting long, fractured shadows across my apartment's sheer curtains. I paced the living room in slow, deliberate steps. My eyes kept drifting toward the balcony windows, scanning the skyline, rooftops, alleyway corners, anywhere someone might be watching from. The soft hum of the city below should have comforted me, but tonight it felt foreboding. Like the quiet
