Lucas’s lips trembled as if they were about to split, his gaze fixed on the mangled flesh of my shoulder, the shock in his eyes solidifying into terror.
Blood dripped down my arm, one drop at a time.
I saw his eyes flinch with each drip—
As if every fall of blood stabbed straight into his heart.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Only the strangled noise of someone on the verge of suffocating.
He was hurting.
I could see it.
But so what?
The reunion I once imagined?
The companionship I once longed for?
Those soft, foolish hopes died the day I was thrown into prison.
Now, all I saw was a man pushed to his limits, his face torn apart by reality,
A man I no longer recognized,
A man cowering like some light-shy creature.
He stepped back.
Again.
Again.
As if running f
