Malakar's POV.
I run harder than I ever have.
The trees blur around me. The wind stings my eyes. My paws pound the forest floor, each strike echoing the same word inside my chest — Hope. Hope. Hope.
I need to get to her.
The scent of blood still clings to the forest like smoke after a fire, but it’s faint now — drying. Settling. A cruel reminder of what was lost.
When I finally break through the tree line and reach the clearing, the world stills.
She’s still there.
Hope sits on the ground, her arms wrapped around Sarah’s limp body. Her face is blank. Frozen. Her cheek pressed to Sarah’s hair, her fingers tangled in the fabric of her shirt. The sun has shifted, casting a golden hue across them—like a halo of warmth around a moment that feels anything but.
The blood has already begun
