Chapter 145

• Lucia's POV
• Claire’s voice kept looping in my head.. sister or lover, sister or lover.. like a broken record I couldn’t smash. Ryan lay on the cold floor, his skin hot with fever, eyes glassy but locked on mine. Don’t leave me, they begged. Sofia huddled nearby, her small sobs bouncing off the walls, sharp little knives in my chest.
• I knelt, pulled the cuffs from my pocket. Metal bit cold into my palm. Ryan’s wrist was already bruised from everything else, but I snapped one end around it anyway, the other to a rusty pipe jutting from the wall. Clink. Instant purple bloomed under his skin.