Scarlett’s POV

I wake up choking on my own breath.

My body jerks violently, as if something has yanked me out of deep water. My heart slams against my ribs, each beat sharp and panicked, and for a split second I don’t know where I am. Darkness presses in from every side. The air feels too thick, too heavy to breathe.

Blood. That’s the first thing my mind latches onto.

Blood soaking into the ground—dark, sticky, endless. It spreads like ink through soil, swallowing the earth until ...