Liana's POV
The ceiling stayed with me, haunting me. Or perhaps it was just my own ghostly self in the early morning darkness, hollow-eyed and wired. Sleep had teased me throughout the night, an unattainable shore. Every time I drifted closed my eyes, Dante's face appeared to me, his eyes a ghostly heat on my skin. And then that word: care. It crept under my skin, scratching, going against all I thought I had known of him, all I wished to feel about him. I was supposed to hate him. I did hate him. Didn't I?
I pushed the sheets off again, the pain of my bruises a solid, earthy ache. At least that was tangible. The rest of it—the vision in the mirror, the visions of hands glowing, the unattainable cure—was a waking nightmare that would never cease.
I stumbled out of bed, stumbling throug
