Scarlett’s POV

I feel it before I see it.

The absence.

It creeps in quietly, like cold air slipping under a door that was never supposed to open. Killian’s presence—always sharp, always heavy, always there—thins around me until it feels like I’m breathing through a hollow space where something vital used to be.

At first, I think I’m imagining it.

I’ve been wrong before. Fear does that to me now. It makes me question instincts that once kept me alive.

But this isn’t ...