Rose's Point Of View
"My... my parents..." I managed to whisper, the words tasting like copper and ash on my tongue, suffocating every last drop of air in my lungs. "My... my siblings..."
Mason's eyes narrowed, his breath catching in his throat as the color drained from his face until he looked like a corpse standing in the dim light of the bedroom hallway.
His hands, still holding the water glasses, went rigid, knuckles pale against the glass. He seemed to sense, in that instant, that whatever came next would shatter the fragile normalcy we'd been clinging to all evening. "What about your family, Rose? What did he do?"
A fresh wave of suffocating sorrow and absolute terror ripped through my chest, forcing another broken sob out of my lips as I pressed my forehead against his collarbone, clutching his t-shirt like a dying woman holding onto a lifeline. I could feel his heartbeat hammering beneath the fabric, frantic and uneven, matching the chaos thundering through my own veins.
