RIVAL’S POV
The house was too quiet when we dragged ourselves back from the pit.
Usually there’d be noise, the distant rattle of trains, the hum of old pipes, something alive enough to remind me the world hadn’t ended. Tonight it felt like it had.
Thomas dropped heavy on the couch, head tilted back, chest rising in ragged pulls. He looked like the pit had spit him out whole but only barely, the bruises already blooming purple and black across his ribs and cheekbone. Blood still crusted under his nose. His knuckles were shredded raw.
I stood over him with the first-aid kit, jaw tight.
“Shirt off,” I said flat.
He blinked up at me, still dazed, then tugged the fabric over his head with a hiss. The bruises stretched ugly across his chest. I swallowed down the hot curl in my stomach was
