Page 143 of Scarred in Silence
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the warm night air. “She didn’t evenlookscared.”
“She wouldn’t,” he says. “If Damien has her, he’s manipulating her into believing it’s her choice.”
I blink at him. “You mean like you did with me?”
His head jerks toward me. I didn’t mean to say it, not really—nottonight. But the words slipped out like a wound tearing open. And now they’re between us.
He swallows. “Do you really think I’m like him?”
“No,” I say too fast. “I don’t. But sometimes I… I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
He steps closer. “You’re real. We’re real. Everything else—”
“Is a lie,” I finish, nodding slowly. “Yeah. I know.”
The music picks up behind us. Evelyn’s laughing with Dante somewhere on the lawn. None of them knows what just happened. None of them know Harmony just slipped through our fingers like smoke.
I look back toward the tree line.
She got in that car willingly.
But the Harmony I knew wouldn’t have.
Which means she’s either changed… or she’s trapped.
I touch the phone in my pocket, tracing the edge of the screen.
“We have to find her.”
Lucien gives a tight nod. “We will.”
“And when we do… if Damien touches her—”
“I’ll kill him,” he says, voice like ice cracking over something much darker.
And I believe him.
Because if there’s one thing Lucien’s good at—it’s finishing what he starts.
* * *
The last of the guests are gone.
Evelyn kissed my cheek before she left and whispered, “You looked powerful tonight.”
I didn’t feel it.
Not when Harmony vanished.
Not when Dante’s text popped up confirming the license plate.
Not now, standing alone in Lucien’s office, staring down at the printout he laid on the desk.
Black ink. White paper. Nothing about it should feel dangerous.
But it’s his name. His fucking name. Damien Crowe. Registered owner. Clean title. No violations.
It’s like he never died. Like he never disappeared. Like the nightmare just got more clever, quieter.
