Page 186 of Sage Haven

REICH

Have you ever felthappiness slip through your fingers? Watched it turn to dust before your eyes? Felt that paralyzing helplessness—the clawing desperation to hold on, to salvage even a sliver of it—before it’s gone?

Before it’s too late?

That’s exactly how it felt.

That day.

The day they took her.

And I knew.

Long before I saw the wreckage. Long before I tasted the metallic bite of fear in the back of my throat.

I knew.

The second the power cut out—severing the camera feeds I had obsessively monitored for days.

Snuffing out my last tether to her.

A knot of dread coiled in my chest, thick and suffocating.

Each breath I took felt shallow, strained—like trying to breathe through smoke.

Because the house was silent, and Sage was alone.

And I wasn’t there.

I’d been sitting with Castor.

Talking about last night.

How it had been everything we’d ever dreamed of.

How, maybe…maybe breaking the rules wasn’t always a mistake.

The irony stung like a blade to the gut.

Because breaking the rules was exactly what had led to this.

I told myself it was nothing.

Just a power outage.

Just a glitch.

Just a moment of bad timing.

I told myself she was fine. That she was still curled up in the library, lost in her books. That she was waiting for me. Safe. Protected. Like I promised she would be.

But I knew better.

And the second my tires hit the driveway; I knew I wasn’t wrong.

The house loomed ahead—and everything inside me stilled.

Gravel scattered across the doorstep.