I didn’t answer him.
Bastián’s eyes stayed on my shoulder, on the blood darkening through my shirt, on the impossible fact that my wound had opened in the same place as his. The room had gone quiet around us, but the silence was not empty. It felt packed tight, like the air itself was waiting for one of us to make the wrong move.
I was the one who moved first.
“I need the bathroom,” I said.
He didn’t stop me, but his stare followed me all the way to the hall. I kept my pace steady even though my shoulder burned with every step and my pulse felt too loud in my ears. I could feel the Bond under my skin now, not asleep anymore, not faint and half-hidden like it had been before.
It was awake.
That thought made my stomach twist.
I reached the bathroom at the end of the hall, shut the doo
