EMILI
We left at dawn. Three armored trucks on the highway—Alaric and Damián in the first, Silas and me in the second, and Klaus with a squad of guardians in the third.
Silas carried a backpack full of books and a notebook where he constantly scribbled notes. Every so often he glanced at me over the rim of his glasses, which I pretended not to notice. Since our conversation in the office, something had changed between us. A shared secret that weighed more than it appeared.
The mark on my neck pulsed softly. I could feel Alaric through it, like a distant echo. I couldn’t hear his thoughts or see what he saw. It was subtler than that. A direction, a certainty that he was ahead of us, in the first truck, alive and alert.
“Can you feel it?” Silas asked without looking up from his notebook.
