The safehouse stank of smoke and sweat, its walls scorched from the last firefight. Every inch of the place carried the memory of survival, but none of us felt safe. Not anymore.
Adrian stood in the center of the room, the low light throwing his shadow long against the cracked plaster. His jaw was clenched, eyes cutting between each of us like blades. Nora leaned against the far wall, silent, her knife glinting faintly in her hand. Kael slumped on a crate, pale but defiant, his wound bound too tightly with a strip of cloth. And me—I stood closest to the door, pulse thrumming like a war drum, every nerve stretched thin.
We had survived the ambush at the ravine, but only barely. And Marcus’s last words still haunted the silence between us: We’re already inside.
Adrian broke it.
“There’s
