Aisha finished her shift in a fog, Amara’s sharp words echoing through her mind long after the café lights dimmed.
Every apology she had repeated, every flinch, every guilty breath still clung to her chest like heavy vines she couldn’t untangle.
By the time she reached her apartment, exhaustion weighed her down.
She didn’t cook.
She didn’t read.
She didn’t even change out of her work clothes.
She simply curled into bed, arm still tender from the dream-inflicted marks, and whispered to herself that tomorrow would hurt less.
But far from her apartment—deep within the forest where the world felt different under the night sky—Callen stood beneath the full moon.
He had tried to ignore the restlessness all day. The constant tug in his chest.
The sensation that something in the world w
