Page 97 of Sage Haven
He stood over me.
A dark silhouette.
A monster carved out of shadow and venom.
And then—he spit on me.
The wet slap of it landed across my cheek, mixing with blood and tears.
I flinched.
But I didn’t wipe it away.
Couldn’t.
The shame of it sank deeper than the bruises.
He was already walking away. The slow crunch of his boots over gravel sounded like nails he was just driving further into my coffin.
Then—the roar of his white Mustang cut through the night. The headlights flared bright, blinding. For a heartbeat, I thought he was going to run me over.
End it.
But he didn’t.
The tires spun, gravel spraying into the air and then he was gone.
Leaving me broken on a dirt road.
Alone.
Bleeding.
Praying for the night to swallow me whole.
But it didn’t. It left me there.
Alive.
With nothing but the wreckage of what wasleft of me.
And I hated it.
I hated that I was still breathing. Hated that he’d left me alive.
Because in that moment—death would’ve been a mercy.
***
I jolted awake, heart pounding as if it had never stopped running, as if sleep had only been a brief blackout. Disoriented, I dragged in a sharp breath that tasted cold and sterile, like metal and antiseptic. My lungs burned as if I'd been underwater too long. Sweat slicked my skin despite the chill that settled deep in my bones.
The silver glow of moonlight spilled through the window across the room, pooling on polished floors and soaking into the muted tones of the walls. It painted everything in ghostly shades, illuminating the stark reality of where I was and what I wasn’t.
Free.
How had it come to this?
I thought I’d outrun tragedy. I thought leaving Sanele meant starting over. Surviving. Healing.
