-Vaughn Blackmore:
I wake up already uneasy, but the second my fingers brush against my head, everything inside me tightens so fast it feels like something snaps.
It's not just unease anymore.
It's panic.
My hand freezes there for a second, pressed lightly against my ears, like I'm hoping I imagined it, like maybe if I don't move, it won't be real. But it is. They're exposed. Completely uncovered. The cap is gone, not even half-slipped, not hanging somewhere nearby—just gone from where it should have been.
My eyes dart immediately to the ground beside me to where the cap was left.
Folded neatly next to a set of clothes that I know, instantly, aren't mine.
And just like that, everything from last night comes rushing back in one heavy, overwhelming wave. The cold, the lake, the shaking, I couldn't control no matter how hard I tried. The zipper. The way he walked in like he had every right to. The way he didn't answer a single question. The way he—
