Cierra:
The house looked smaller than I remembered.
Or maybe I’d grown too big for the ghosts that lived here.
Paint peeled from the siding like old skin. The porch sagged. The windows were eyes gone blind.
And still, my heart stuttered when I saw it. That familiar ache, the one that lived in the hollow between memory and loss.
Dane killed the engine. Silence rushed in, loud and sharp.
For a moment, neither of us moved. The air outside was heavy, thick with the scent of rot and damp wood.
My wolf paced beneath my skin, uneasy. Home, she whispered, but it didn’t sound like a welcome.
I opened the door and stepped out. The boards creaked under my boots, soft with decay. Every inch of the place hummed with old pain. The kind that doesn’t fade—it just burrows deeper until it becomes pa
