The house has never been this quiet, save for the drip of water leaking from the cracked ceiling. The storm outside smothered the city’s usual chorus of car horns and shouting vendors, leaving the air thick with a kind of funeral silence.
Cain sat at the far end of a steel table, cigarette burning down between his fingers.
The smoke curled lazily toward the ceiling, almost mocking his stillness. His eyes were sharp but unreadable, like the surface of black ice.
Elara leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching him. She had seen him kill before, seen him bleed, seen him hold his liquor better than anyone she’d met, watched him as he lost his mind and regained himself, earned salvation and more but this time was different.
This silence? This unnerving quiet was different. He wasn’
