The silence is suffocating—thick and cold and wrong. My head starts to ring. It feels like the air has been sucked from the room, and I can’t think, I can’t breathe.
Until May drops to her knees beside me.
Her voice is hoarse. Barely a whisper. But it detonates in my chest.
“They’ve been taken.”
My heart punches into overdrive. My limbs go cold, and heat rushes up my spine in waves of rage and panic. I shoot to my feet, storming across the room to the driver. Aspen stays glued to my side, his shoulder brushing my leg, radiating calm—trying to ground me.
But right now, I don’t want to be calm.
I want blood.
“What. Happened.”
My voice is quiet. Deadly. Ailm stirs inside me, echoing my fury with a growl I feel ripple down my arms.
The driver pales. His hands tremble.
“We blew a tire
