Knox:
The desert night was quiet.
Too damn quiet.
Cicadas buzzed in the distance. The warm wind pushed grit across the porch floor, rustling through the cracked screen door. I sat in the old wooden rocker Nora gave us, nursing a bottle of something strong and bitter. The kind of drink that burned like truth on the way down.
Out here, peace looked like a sky full of stars and a silence too big to trust.
But peace never stayed long.
Not for men like me.
Not for girls like her.
I was staring at the horizon, trying to make sense of what came next, when I heard it.
A scream.
Choked. Wet. Desperate.
Callie.
The sound carved down my spine like a rusted knife. I was already on my feet before the bottle hit the floor, crashing and shattering on the porchboards. I didn’t flinch. Didn’t h
