Eliana POV
The sky was too quiet.
The trees no longer whispered. Even the wind had folded its breath against the night.
Something was coming.
I could smell it in the nooks of my chest, the unfamiliar manner the villa lights flitted, in the fashion my pulse would not relax even though I breathed very deeply.
Alex was outside again. Watching the woods with eyes that never blinked for long. He had not said much since we finished laying the final traps. He did not need to. His silence was a language I understood now. Measured. Weighted. Braced.
Inside, I paced the living room like a restless creature. Every surface of my skin ached. My fingertips were numb but hot. My mouth tasted like rust and cinders. And deep beneath all of it, there was this unbearable hollowness where Scarlet used t
