Seraphina's Point Of View
The world didn't just slow down; it shattered into jagged, silent frames.
My eyes stretched so wide the corners burned as I watched Mason's large frame violently jerk backward. The impact of the bullet sounded like a wet leather whip cracking against concrete, a noise so wrong, so final, that some distant part of my brain refused to accept it as real.
For a terrifying, surreal second, he stayed upright, his face a mask of sudden, pure shock, his eyes blinking rapidly as if he couldn't quite comprehend why his chest had suddenly erupted into a brilliant flower of crimson. I remember thinking, absurdly, that he looked almost offended, like the bullet had interrupted him mid-sentence and he simply hadn't caught up yet.
Some small, disconnected part of me kept waiting for him to laugh it off, to make some joke about Texas hospitality, because that was who Mason was… always finding a way to lighten a room even when the walls were closing in.
