Val lay still, her skin clammy against the rumpled bedsheets. The once-celebratory decorations from Halloween still clung faintly to the corners of her room: an orange paper pumpkin drooping from the wall, a faint trace of black glitter smudged across the floor. None of it mattered now. Her body burned, her head pounded, and every breath felt too heavy.

The night before haunted her—the mask, the revelation, Jax’s desperate pleas, and the gnawing memory of Ronan’s twisted smirk. It ...