Tony
The alarm didn’t scream; it hummed, a low vibration on the bedside table that felt like a serrated blade cutting through the only peace I’d had in years. I reached out and silenced it before the second beat, my arm still heavy and warm where it had been draped over Myra.
It was 4:00 AM. In Vermont, in the dead of February, there is no such thing as predawn light. Outside the window, the world was a void—pitch black and silent, save for the occasional haunted creak of a pine limb groaning under the weight of the ice. The only light in the room came from the tiny, glowing red numbers of the clock, casting a faint, bloody hue over the duvet.
Myra didn't wake up immediately. In the shadows, she looked younger, the sharp lines smoothed away by sleep. For a fleeting moment, she wasn't th
