SAGE
Shock didn't hit me all at once.
It came in slow, nauseating waves, each one heavier than the last, until my knees finally gave out and I was lying fully on Adam, that he had to sit down at the edge of the bed, legs stretched outward, my fingers curling into his shirt as if fabric could anchor me to reality.
Claire was behind it all? How?
Naomi's confession still echoed in my ears, unfinished yet already devastating.
My mind leapt ahead, unwillingly—to the rest of the truths that would soon spill, to the consequences waiting just beyond this room. To the vampires.
They would be here soon. I could feel it in my bones, in the way the air seemed to tighten around my chest. The wards I had placed earlier , after getting the first truth, were thinning, stretched by my own unstable magic.
Could I fight vampires?
The thought wasn't heroic. It was practical. Cold. Fear-edged.
I reached inward, instinctively searching for El, for her voice that always cut through my spirals.
