Val's P.O.V

The deep, dreamless sleep didn’t last nearly long enough. It was a thick, heavy blanket that smothered us for a few precious hours, but dawn had barely begun to bleed a soft, grey light through Brielle’s panoramic windows when consciousness started to return.

I was the first to surface, dragged awake by the persistent, low throb of a stress headache behind my eyes. The events of the previous day reassembled themselves in my mind with brutal clarity. The contract. The grocery ...