The weight of everything Dominic had told me crashed down on me like a falling building. My legs suddenly felt weak and unstable, and before I could stop myself, I was sliding off the bed and onto the cold marble floor. The hunting knife clattered beside me, forgotten in the chaos of emotions swirling through my mind.
"No," I whispered, shaking my head violently. "No, this can't be true. You're lying. You have to be lying."
But even as I said the words, I could feel the terrible truth of his story settling into my bones. The way he had looked when he told me about the accident, the pain in his voice when he talked about my parents – it was too real, too raw to be fake.
Tears started flowing down my cheeks as the full reality hit me. My parents had died because they were trying to protec
