The air in the room was too still, the kind of silence that felt like it was waiting for something to break.
Cora had been staring at the ceiling for twenty minutes, buried under a duvet that felt like a cloud, but her mind was stuck in the gravel of the parking lot where she’d left Eli.
Then, the sky finally cracked.
A jagged flash of lightning turned the room a stark, clinical white, followed instantly by a roar of thunder that felt like it had physical weight.
Cora gasped, bolting upright, her fingers twisting into the expensive sheets. In the dorms, the concrete walls acted as a muffler, but here, in a house made of glass and modern angles, the storm felt personal.
Another boom echoed, a low, guttural growl that shook the floorboards beneath the bed.
Cora’s breath came in shall
