Evaline:
Charles!
Relief surged through me. It was raw, instinctive, and overwhelming in the best way possible.
For a split second, everything else faded - the cold, the stung of silver - none of it mattered.
What mattered was that Charles had found me. He's here. He-
The feeling died.
Just like that.
As quickly as it had come, it twisted into something else entirely. Something cold, something sharp, something wrong.
Because the look on his face, it wasn't relief, neither was it concern. It wasn't anything close to what I had expected.
No.
It was calm. He looked too calm, and beneath that calmness, there was something else, something dark... and satisfactory.
Instead of looking like a friend worried for my safety, he looked more like someone who had just watched a plan fall perfectly into place.
My breath hitched as the painful realization hit me cold and sharp, and the fragile thread of hope inside me snapped.
He wasn't here to save me.
