LAUREN'S POV

Today felt like a crushing, endless failure. The whole day had slipped through our fingers and with it any hope of finding Aria. Ethan was nowhere to be found. Aria was nowhere. I lay flat across the backseat of the car as if it were my bed, the leather cool beneath my cheek. The tears I had been holding so tightly all day began to leak out anyway, slow and relentless. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

The pain sat in my chest like a weight I hadn’t felt since Elena ...