CHAPTER EIGHT
Liana
The nightmares are getting worse.
Every time I close my eyes, I'm back there. In the dark. With them.
I can feel their hands on me. Hear their voices. Smell the garbage and the blood.
I wake up screaming. Every. Single. Time.
Luca stays with me now. He sleeps in the chair beside my bed, and when I wake up terrified, he's there. He holds me until I can breathe again.
I don't know why he cares so much. I'm nothing to him. A stranger he found in an alley.
But he treats me like I matter. Like I'm worth protecting.
I'm starting to remember more. Not everything. Just... pieces.
There were at least two of them. Maybe three.
They grabbed me when I was heading to work. I was a waitress at a diner downtown. I remember that now. I was walking to my car, and they just... appeared.
One of them put something over my mouth. A cloth. It smelled sweet.
And then I woke up in the alley. And everything hurt.
I don't remember what happened in between. My mind won't let me go there.
Bassi says that's normal. That my brain is protecting me from trauma I'm not ready to process.
But I need to remember. I need to know who did this.
Because Luca is going to find them. And when he does, I want to know their names.