I wasn't listening to Darius.
I could hear him—his voice flowing beside me as we cut through the brush, his words rising and falling like an annoying chant—but I wasn't absorbing any of it.
My mind was far ahead of my body, racing down a darker corridor entirely. I stepped over roots, brushed aside hanging vines, and let my limbs move on instinct alone.
He was scolding me. Again.
"…Makeh could have told us more if you had just stayed," he was saying, his boots crunching against leaves as he tried to keep up with my long strides. "You storming out like that accomplished nothing, cara. We should have pressed her harder… asked the right questions. There are things she was holding back and you know it—"
I tuned him out deliberately.
