Renee didn’t respond. She couldn’t.
Mary’s cries filled her ear, each one more pitiful than the last.
Evan. Stabbed. Critical.
Her chest tightened until she could barely breathe. The text she’d sent him before he was stabbed: the one that practically begged the universe to hurt him, replayed in her mind on a vicious loop.
Before she even realised what she was doing, she threw the phone. It hit the wall with a crack and fell to the floor in pieces.
Her legs gave out beneath her. She slid down the wall and crumpled, folding in on herself as sobs tore free uncontrollably. Every breath felt like it scraped her lungs, guilt ripping through her chest like a blade.
Renee stayed slumped against the wall for ten whole minutes, sobbing until her entire body ached. When the tears finally ran ou
