I dropped to my knees by the dresser and everything snapped into sharp focus—the sick red, the smell of blood, the sudden, boyish panic that I didn’t know how to manage because I’d always been the one to do the hurting, not the one who feared it. I cupped her face, fingers trembling. “Antalya, stay with me. Talk to me—please.”

She shoved my hands away like I was a viper. Hard. Her palm stung across my wrist and the old, ridiculous ache of wanting to be the one to make her stop ...