Eve's POV
The bus ride had been long, the air thick with diesel and exhaustion, but when Eve finally stepped onto the cracked pavement of Westwood City, she felt something close to relief. The sky hung low with clouds, the streets alive with strangers who didn’t know her name, didn’t whisper about the Ashbrooks, didn’t look at her like she was a trespasser in her own life.
It was anonymity. And for the first time in years, anonymity felt like freedom.
She checked into a small motel on the edge of the city, a place where the wallpaper peeled in strips and the bed sagged in the middle, but it was hers. No cold marble floors. No chandeliers. No silence that scraped against her bones. Just a door she could lock and a room that didn’t demand anything of her.
The days stretched in quiet mono
