The sand was cold under Scarlet’s feet, packed tight where the waves had been chewing at it all night. The condo lights glowed behind her-warm, careless squares of yellow against the dark. Music still thumped faintly through the walls. Laughter, maybe. Or shouting. It all blurred together.
The ocean was louder.
She walked until the wet sand gave way beneath her toes, until the water licked at her ankles and kept climbing. The night air smelled like salt and iron and something endless. The horizon had disappeared completely; sea and sky had folded into the same black mass.
Scarlet stopped.
Closed her eyes.
For one suspended moment, everything inside her went quiet—not peace, exactly, but absence. No voices. No plans. No fear of what would happen next.
She stepped forward.
The water s
