Chapter Seventy-Six
Blade’s pov
The compound was eerily quiet in the hours before dawn. The adrenaline of the previous night had finally bled out of me, leaving behind a hollow, aching exhaustion. I needed to get to my room, but as I rounded the corner of the barracks, I saw her.
Skyler was sitting on the wooden steps of the porch, her knees pulled up to her chest. She wasn't smoking, wasn't drinking—she was just staring out into the dark yard, a silhouette of solitude. She didn't turn when my boots crunched on the gravel. She already knew it was me.
I should have kept walking. I should have gone to my room, locked the door, and stayed in the dark. But my feet moved toward her without my permission. I stopped at the bottom of the steps, the space between us charged with the heavy, unsa
