THE FIRST NIGHT
PART ONE: THE SILENCE
2:34 AM — Safe House, Manhattan
Luca screamed at 2:34 AM.
Not the scream of a child having a nightmare. The scream of someone waking from one, gasping like he’d been drowning and his lungs were finally remembering how to breathe. Aria was beside him before consciousness fully registered muscle memory from seven years of broken sleep, her body moving before her mind caught up.
He was thrashing, his small hands flailing against sheets that suddenly felt like restraints. His eyes were open but unfocused, still partially trapped in whatever horror his sleeping brain had constructed.
“I’m here,” Aria whispered, but the words felt useless. She gathered him, his body small and rigid and burning with the kind of heat that came from pure terror. “I’m here
