Some gifts don’t come wrapped in ribbon.
They come in silence.
In warnings.
And sometimes… in blood.
I didn’t sleep that night.
I lay on my side, staring at the skyline, replaying Maya’s voice over and over in my head and her tear-streaked confession, her whispered regrets, the truth I didn’t want to face. Her betrayal wasn’t random. It had a blueprint. And I walked right into it.
Valen’s words at the pier still haunted me: “You’re not prey anymore.”
Then why did I feel like I was still being hunted?
At some point near dawn, exhaustion pulled me under. But when I woke again, it wasn’t to peace. It was to the shrill buzz of my apartment intercom.
I jolted upright.
The gray morning light blurred everything outside my window, but the buzzer was sharp, real. I stumbled barefoot to th
