POV: Violet
The clock read past midnight.
I sat on the edge of the bed with my knees tucked to my chest, staring at the faint city glow bleeding through the curtains. It wasn’t the darkness that scared me it was the silence.
For five years, I had taught myself how to sleep in silence, how to wake in it, how to move through every day pretending it didn’t crush me. But tonight, the silence felt alive, crawling across my skin like a swarm of invisible insects.
Because Ryan wasn’t here.
He’d walked out into the night with nothing more than a muttered word “The clan”and it was as though the air had been sucked out of the world with him. I hadn’t realized how deeply his presence filled me until it was gone.
I pressed my palms to my eyes, forcing back tears. Stupid. I was supposed to be str
