Don't Call This Line

Don't Call This Line

XANE POV

The silence in the car was suffocating. I sat rigid in the passenger seat, my body still aching from the wolfsbane poisoning, but that pain was nothing compared to the turmoil churning in my chest. Through the car window, I'd watched my mother physically fight off a man in the hospital parking lot. A man who had tried desperately to get to me, to reach the car, to—what? I didn't know. But the fear in my mother's eyes, the way she'd positioned herself as a barrier between him and me, told me everything I needed to know.

This man was dangerous.

My mother's hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel, her jaw clenched so tightly I could see the muscle jumping beneath her skin. She hadn't said a word since we'd left the hospital, and the silence was eating me alive. I needed answers. I deserved answers.

"Who was that man?" The question came out sharper than I'd intended, cutting through the quiet like a knife.

My mother's shoulders tensed, but she kept he