(Hailey Miller's POV)
The ride in the patrol car was a vibrant silence, punctuated only by the thin, intermittent hiss of the police radio and the steady drum of my own pulse in my ears. Outside the smeared window, the city slid by like a painted set—familiar shapes made strange by the angle of the streetlights. I didn't see intersections anymore; I cataloged shadows for exits, faces for menace. Every anonymous passerby became a possible threat, every doorway a promise of concealment. Liam sat in another cruiser, the metal of his cuffs cool and small against his wrists. He had traded one prison for another, and I had been the hand that closed the second door. The truth tasted like metal, and it sat in my stomach hot and bitter.
The station smelled the same as it always did: stale coffee,
