VALERIE
One by one, the crowd began to disperse after Kyle’s sharp declaration. Despite the growing distance between me and the onlookers, I could still feel their stares, as if their eyes were boring into my back. Chris held me steady, his arm a constant, reassuring presence around my shoulders. My body felt weak, like a puppet whose strings had been cruelly cut, and my legs refused to cooperate.
Kyle’s voice broke through the haze of my thoughts, louder and sharper than before, the sheer force of it making me flinch.
“I swear, I won’t rest until I find out who dared to do this,” he snarled. His tone was deadly, every word laced with fury and a promise of revenge.
“They’ll pay for what they’ve done.”
I glanced up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. The exhaustion was already weighing
