Elena Cruz
Her palms woke her up before her brain did.
The throbbing cut through sleep and she sat up fast, disoriented, hands held out in front of her like evidence. Clean bandages. Professionally wrapped. She stared at them and pieced together the night in fragments. The car. The pavement. Blood on her hands and everything inside her body screaming. Alexander finding her. His study. The strange clawing sensation under her skin that had built and built until warmth hit her like a wall and everything went dark.
She didn’t remember getting into bed. She peeled the bandages back slowly.
The cuts were nearly closed. Pink new skin where last night there had been open wounds. She turned her palms over and stared at them and felt the wrongness of it settle in her stomach. One night. This was
