Page 112 of Unleashed By Eden

I have no idea who did it. And I don’t know how . . . or why.

I buckle in on autopilot, stare at the back of the seat in front of me as the cabin lights dim, and the only thought left that doesn’t dissolve into static is the one that burns:

I’ve lost everything.

Chapter thirty-one

Violet

The plane claws its way out of the sky and drops into Sydney, and I swear my body feels like it’s been dragged behind it the whole way. I haven’t slept. I haven’t eaten.

Sixteen hours in a metal tube with no escape, no answers, and way too much time to imagine every worst-case scenario on a loop. My eyes burn, and my brain is cooked. I spent most of the flight yanking myself back from the verge of a panic attack every forty minutes, like clockwork.

Now I’m home but the word doesn’t sit right anymore. My apartment looks the same as when I left, with its scuffed skirting boards and secondhand couch. But it doesn’t feel mine anymore. I thought by the end of the tour I’d be desperate for my own shower and bed.

I don’t want any of it.

Instead, I want a hotel room that smells like him, a bed creased with his weight, and his stupid paper rose on my pillow. I want Carter, in whatever time zone, in whatever city.

I leave my luggage in the living room, my legs carrying me to my bedroom. I plug my dead phone into the wall and sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, head hanging low.

It’s been two days. It was a long flight, but when you add in the cruel math of time zones, it swallowed up whole chunks of my life. One day gone in the air. Another erased by the clock.

Everything that happened at LAX, everything that exploded online . . . all of it has already lived an entire news cycle without me. People have reacted, judged, and speculated while I was strapped into seat 42A, breathing recycled air.

Now, I’m about to see the reality of it.

For sixteen hours, my brain played disaster reels. Yet somehow, these last few minutes . . . these last few seconds, waiting for my phone to turn on, are even worse.

My body knows something ugly is coming; my hands won’t stop shaking. My fingers tapping against my thigh becomes the only thing keeping me tethered.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The screen remains black.

I press the power button.

Nothing.

“Come on,” I mutter, pushing harder on the button to make it work faster. “Come on, you piece of shit.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I try again, holding the button longer.

Still nothing.

Heat pricks up my neck. I grip the phone harder. “You fucking piece of shit.” I pull my arm back, aiming for the wall—then stop myself. I need the traitorous little fucker, and the thought of dragging myself to a shopping center right now to get a replacement phone makes me want to lie down on the floor and never get up.

One more try.

The Apple logo finally blooms on the screen.

I sag forward, a shaky breath ripping out of me. “Thank you,” I whisper to the phone like a lunatic.

My free hand is drenched with sweat, so I wipe it on my thigh.

The home screen loads.