Darius didn’t speak.
He didn’t move, just stood frozen with the phone gripped tight like it was fused to his hand, each breath coming too slow to be normal. The video had stopped, the final frame still lingering, Dahlia’s face half in shadow, lips curved in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Selene sat on the couch, her arm bandaged but aching, her blood still drying under her fingernails. She watched him.
Waited.
The silence between them was so loud it started to shake the walls.
“You didn’t feel her,” he said finally. “That close. In our room. Breathing the same air.”
“I felt something,” Selene said softly. “But I thought it was a nightmare.”
“It was.”
He looked at her then—sharply. Like it hurt.
“I don’t know what she wants,” he said. “Besides to gut me. Or maybe that is the p
