Mia
I sat in the backseat next to Brynn, the car moving like a metronome through the folds of country road and memory. Brynn’s hand rested lightly on my knee, a steady press that stopped anxious thoughts tumbling into panic. Frynn drove with the ease of a man who had been steering through storms his whole life; his jaw was set, eyes distant, already plotting the next move. The radio was off, the only sound was the whisper of tires and the soft cadence of our breathing. That low, ordinary music steadied me.
“Do you want them alive or dead?” Brynn asked again, finally… more directly than before when Frynn asked, as if the question required a decision carved in stone.
“Alive enough to speak,” I said. I tasted the lie the way one tastes a bitter herb and swallows it down: necessary. I want
