EMBER’S POV
Because she said it out loud.
The exact thing sitting on my chest like a stone — Rayana upstairs, drowning by the hour — and she said it smugly, dangled it like a worm on a hook over a woman she’s just put on the floor four times, and every ounce of grief and terror and fury I’ve been swallowing since I watched Rayana smile goodbye comes roaring straight up my spine—
“Never,” I snarl, and I come up off that mat with everything I have.
And I put it all into one clean brutal uppercut, exactly where Knox showed me the soft place under the jaw — and it lands. It actually lands.
Hale’s head snaps back, and she staggers, a real stagger, and for one bright vicious second I feel incredible.
“Ember.” Knox is off the wall. “That’s enough. Both of you—”
But we’re locked.
We are co
