The darkness does not feel accidental.
It settles too evenly, too completely, like the packhouse has taken a single, collective breath and decided to hold it, and the bond reacts before my mind catches up, flaring sharp and hot in my chest as instinct overrides thought. I reach out without looking, fingers brushing fabric and then gripping Adam’s sleeve as the absence of light stretches long enough to matter.
“Stay with me,” he says immediately, his voice low and steady, pitched for my ears alone.
“I am,” I reply, even as my pulse hammers hard enough to make my ribs protest.
Justin swears somewhere to our left, the sound clipped and controlled, and I hear the faint scrape of a chair shifting as Alice moves closer, positioning herself instinctively between me and the open space of the r
