I knew something was wrong by the way she was holding her phone.
Alice always tries to be strong. Always tries to hide when something shakes her. But there’s a kind of silence that doesn’t fool anyone—and that one was screaming inside her.
She was sitting on the cabin’s porch, staring at nothing, her phone resting on her leg, her fingers trembling slightly. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t talking. She didn’t call for me.
That’s what worried me.
“Alice?” I called softly.
She lifted her gaze slowly, like she was coming back from far away.
“He sent me a message,” she said, without any buildup.
I didn’t need to ask who.
My body reacted before my mind did. Heat rose in my chest, spreading through my arms, tightening my jaw. It wasn’t explosive anger. It was something colder. Sharper. Dang
