ISABELLA
The car is too quiet. Adrian drives like the road personally offended him, jaw locked, eyes fixed forward, one hand white‑knuckled on the wheel. Tobias sits in the passenger seat, tense and coiled, checking the mirrors every few seconds. The air feels thick, suffocating, like the aftermath of a storm that hasn’t finished breaking.
But it’s not the silence that bothers me. It’s the photo. It lies on the seat beside me, edges curled from Tobias gripping it too tightly. The image is harmless at first glance — me laughing beside Adrian’s mother, sunlight catching in my hair, her hand on my shoulder. A moment I barely remember.
But someone else remembered. Someone watched and waited.
And someone got close enough to take that picture without either of us noticing.
Adrian thinks it’
