Avery:
It should haunt me.
The blood.
The weight of his body crumpling to the floor.
That sound—God, that sound. The hollow finality of a bullet meeting bone. The silence that followed.
But it doesn’t.
Not the way it should.
I should be afraid—of the place, of the people, of him.
Cruz De La Rosa. The man I once thought might ruin me, and now I know for certain he would ruin the world for me. Burn it down with his bare hands and walk away covered in ash like he hadn’t just destroyed something sacred.
But I wasn’t afraid.
Not when that man walked into the med shack, eyes bloodshot, reeking of stale whiskey and rot.
Not when his voice slithered through the air like a snake looking for skin to sink into.
Not even when his hands landed on my body, rough, possessive, greedy.
Because
