ANDREI
THE DRIVE WAS quiet.
Not peaceful. Not calm. Just quiet in that heavy, suffocating way that made my jaw clench tighter with every mile. The kind of quiet where you hear yourself think too much. Hear your own f*****g heartbeat pounding against your ribs like it’s trying to escape.
The tires hummed over wet asphalt, streetlights flashing by in cold orange streaks. I didn’t touch the radio. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even glance in the mirror. But I could feel him back there. Like heat. Like a sickness crawling up my spine.
Jace.
Slouched against the door, wrists raw and red. Hair still tangled. Skin blotched with bruises and dried blood. His mouth—f**k, that mouth—was swollen from earlier. I shouldn’t have noticed. Shouldn’t have remembered how it looked stretched open, lips wet, eyes
