I wanted to scream.
I couldn’t. The water held the sound hostage.
And I couldn’t feel her.
Something cracked inside me.
A hollow ache that wasn’t mine, yet was.
Where was she?
Where was she?
The question throbbed through me like a second heartbeat—frantic, despairing, lost.
Where is she? Where is she? WHERE IS SHE—
**
I shot awake in the cave to the dim morning light, breath clawing in and out of my chest in panicked bursts.
For a moment I expected water.
Glass.
Pain.
Instead, a soft ray of sunlight spilled through a crack in the stone, warm against my face.
My eyes drifted to the cave entrance.
K lay curled against the doorway, his body wedged in an impossibly uncomfortable position—like he’d fallen asleep guarding the exit. Or guardingus. His lashes rested against bruised-looking skin, his chest rising and falling in slow, uneven breaths.
I looked around, heartbeat still stumbling.
Sy was nowhere in sight.
Dev and Ash were still sleeping—both far closer to me than I remembered.
Dev must have rolled in his sleep because he was barely a breath away now, stretched on his side, face relaxed in a way I had never seen while he was awake.
He looked… almost angelic.
Sharp cheekbones softened by sleep.
Black hair messy, unruly, nothing like his usual precise sweep.
For a moment—just a moment—I wondered what it would feel like to touch it.
If it would be as soft as it looked.
My hand lifted before I even realised.
Then froze.
I pulled it back slowly, pulse stuttering.
He wouldn’t appreciate that.
