Seraphina's Point Of View
"Get your filthy hands off her, you absolute asshole!" I yelled, stepping right in front of Mason. My voice cut through the heavy, suffocating silence of the apartment like a physical blow, and for one strange moment I barely recognized it as my own. It sounded harder, older, like something clawing its way up from a place I'd buried a long time ago… a place I'd hoped never to visit again.
Diego stared at me for a split second, surprised, before his face split into a wide, mocking grin. He let out a sharp laugh that echoed uncomfortably off the bare walls, the sound scraping against my nerves like fingernails on stone. It was a laugh I remembered from childhood, the kind that used to precede something terrible, and hearing it again made every muscle in my body go rigid with old, learned dread.
