025

REVELATIONS

~KADE POV~

{Playlist suggestion: "Hurt" by Johnny Cash}

Blood money.

The words echoed in my head as I walked away from Chelsea, each step feeling like I was tearing something vital out of my chest.

She had looked at me like I was everything she hated in this world, and maybe I was.

I should have kept walking.

Should have gone home, packed my bags, and transferred to another school like my father wanted. Should have accepted that Chelsea Lynch and I were always meant to be enemies, not... whatever we had been becoming.

Instead, I found myself at the greenhouse.

Our sanctuary. The one place where we had been honest with each other, where the weight of our last names hadn't mattered as much.

I sat on the old wooden bench we had claimed as ours, staring at the dying plants around me. Everything in here was broken or forgotten, just like us.

Twenty minutes later, I heard footsteps on the gravel path outside.

Chelsea appeared in the doorway, her cleaning uniform wrinkled and h