The mud tasted like copper and decayed leaves. I didn't dare to breathe, my chest pressed hard against the wet earth as the blue and red lights of the police cruisers swept through the dense coastal pines. The sirens were deafening now, a howling chorus echoing off the jagged cliffs where the remains of the Thorne private jet still burned like a fallen star.
Toby was silent, his small fingers dug so deeply into my collarbones it drew blood. He didn't whimper. The boy had witnessed three deaths in twenty-four hours; his mind had simply locked the doors to the outside world.
A few feet away, Silas lay motionless in the dirt, his face half-buried in the mud. His breathing was a wet, rattling wheeze. The dark crimson pool stretching beneath his ruined shoulder was widening, soaking into the
