Colt’s Point Of View
The silence was worse than screaming.
Krystal sat across from me in the safehouse, her body coiled tight like a wire stretched to its limit, back straight, arms wrapped around herself as if she were the only thing holding her together. The soft yellow glow of the dying lamp cast uneven shadows across her face—half-illuminated, half-lost to the dark, like she couldn't quite decide which side to exist in anymore. Her eyes didn’t meet mine. They stayed fixed on some invisible point between us, like if she looked directly at me, she’d shatter.
Outside, a storm raged with feral intensity. Rain pounded against the windows in angry bursts, like fists demanding to be let in. The wind screamed through the cracks of the old walls, not like weather—but like grief. Howling, gn
