Justin Pov:
Rico's hand was steady. It always was. The sedative entered June's bloodstream like water slipping into the cracks of a fractured wall—quiet, unseen at first. She didn't fight it. Not really. Her thrashing slowed, her breathing evened, and her lips—those trembling lips once screaming numbers and half-buried names—parted just slightly as the silence took her.
She finally went still.
Her body, which moments ago thrashed like something drowning in fire, now lay quiet on the narrow bed tucked into the corner of the cave's sanctuary wing.
The silence I had begged for came like a curse.
I watched her head slump sideways on the plush, black leather couch we kept in the upper lounge. Her hair spilled over the armrest like ink, dark and tangled, matted with dried tears and bits of blood that didn't belong to her. The flickering lights overhead made her skin seem almost translucent. Her veins, barely noticeable before, pulsed with secrets.
And all I could do was sit there.
