Chapter 17: The Weight of Wanting
Olivia's "Liv" Winters’ POV
The city teaches you how to lie.
It hums around you, loud enough to drown out your thoughts, bright enough to make you forget the shadows that trail your steps. After a while, you learn how to blend in—to walk like you don’t carry claws beneath your skin, like the moon doesn’t watch you more closely than the rest.
I was getting good at it.
Too good.
Days passed. Then weeks. Work became routine again—briefings, deadlines, cases stacked on my desk like tangible proof that I still belonged to the human world. My name was no longer whispered with pity or curiosity. To most, I was just Liv Winters, the woman who always met her deadlines and never stayed late unless it mattered.
At night, I cooked. I read. I slept.
And some
