Dawn

Tommaso

As soon as I saw the picture, I raced over to the Haven. The girl who wouldn’t speak, the one who’d barely moved, was the girl I’d been looking for all along. Riccardo Marino had stooped lower than I’d ever dreamed, to sell his underage granddaughter. I hadn’t changed clothes, so the iron reek of blood still clung to me, and exhaustion started to slow my every move.

But all of that left my mind when I saw Paige at the top of the stairs. Her bright red hair had tumbled out of the messy bun I’d seen earlier, bags hung under her eyes, and she moved with aching slowness that reminded me a little too much of when I’d first found her, like she didn’t quite trust her body to keep holding her up. I just opened my arms.

She stepped into me, and I held her. Part of me expected her to start crying. Part of me almost expected me to start crying, from the sheer intensity, the ups and downs of the night I’d had. I’d gotten everything I’d wanted, nearly lost it again, and none of it mattered