Asher
The night was heavy with silence, the kind that pressed against my ribs and made every step sound louder than it should. After leaving the abandoned chapel, I couldn’t shake Tessie’s smug little vow echoing in my skull. “I’ll do everything possible to awaken her.” Her eyes had gleamed with that fanatical hunger I’d seen too many times in hunters who’d lost themselves to the cause.
Shirley Winters.
Why was everything spiraling back to her?
The dull thrum of the streetlamps above me cast my shadow long and thin, stretching into the empty road. I shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to piece together Elias’s schemes with Tessie’s rash promises. If Shirley’s mark awakened, what then? Would she be weaponized by Elias like some pawn on his board? Would Tessie force her hand, drag her
