Page 126 of Buried in Blood
“And Harmony?”
I pause.
“She’s trying to survive…. or sold… or dead… I haven’t been able to breach his new camera system yet.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Dante exhales hard and sinks into the chair across from me. For a moment, we sit in silence, the firelight dancing across our skin like the ghosts of choices we can’t take back.
“What if he shows?” Dante asks finally.
I meet his eyes.
“Then I kill him.”
“You say that like it’s easy.”
“It will be.”
“But it won’t be clean.”
I nod once. “No. It won’t.”
The flames crackle louder between us. Somewhere outside, a branch snaps in the wind, and both of us look toward the sound.
Dante rubs his jaw. “We’re missing something.”
“Probably.”
“I hate that.”
“Me too.”
We lapse into another stretch of quiet. Only this one feels heavier. Tighter.
Because we’ve both felt it. The shift.
The air is too still.
The silence is too deep.
And Damien, for all his chaos, has never been this quiet for this long.
It’s not a retreat.
It’s a rehearsal.
And tomorrow?
The curtain lifts.
36
Harmony
The door clicks shut behind me.
