I didn’t sleep. I just stared at the ceiling until the popcorn texture started looking like moving insects.
My body was a lead weight, but my brain was doing laps. Every time the house settled—a floorboard creaking or the fridge humming—I jumped. And the mark on my arm... it was humming, too. Not a sound, but a vibration. Like a low-voltage wire was taped to my skin.
I traced the jagged lines with my thumb. "What are you doing to me?" I whispered to the empty room.
The mark just sat there, pulsing a faint, bruised purple in the dark. It felt like a countdown clock I didn't know how to read.
By 7:00 AM, my head felt like it was stuffed with wet cotton. I was over the cryptic warnings and Adrian’s "brooding protector" routine. I didn't want a bodyguard; I wanted a manual.
I found myself
