Scarlett
I wake up with my cheek pressed to the floor, eyes raw from whatever tears I let fall last night. After finishing Rhodes’ letters, sleep must have claimed me. No one came looking. Not Violet. Not Liam. Not even a shadow of Rhodes in a dream.
I’m still in the same blood-stained clothes. Still carrying that smell of rot and loss. My hair is a bird’s nest of red strands, my throat dry and sore like the desert of Sahara. The air feels stripped of warmth, like the room forgot how to hold me.
Light filters through the window, muted and pale. I sit up slowly. The letter slips from my grip, falling as though it means nothing.
Maybe it doesn’t since Rhodes is no longer here. Dead. Gone. Forgotten.
The pain is almost unbearable, but I am fighting through it.
I rinse my melancholy fa
