Venessa’s POV

I hadn’t slept in two nights, and my body screamed for rest, but I couldn’t stop moving. Every corner of the forest felt like Kael’s shadow was waiting, ready to drag me back to the nightmare I had just escaped.

So I ran. I ran until my lungs burned and the soles of my boots tore, until the thick green of the woods thinned and turned into dirt roads, until dirt roads became highway.

By the time I stumbled onto a bus with the boy bundled close to my chest, the world outside had already shifted. Cities blurred past the window in streaks of light and noise, and...