All Chapters of Another Chance : Chapter 71 - Chapter 72

The Weight Beneath Her EyesMark’s POVThe morning broke in slow, muted colors. Pale light filtered through the trees, painting everything in tired shades of gold and gray. I hadn’t slept much. None of us had. The fire had died sometime before dawn, leaving only a faint curl of smoke and the lingering warmth of bodies too close and too far all at once.Rissa was awake before me, sitting a few feet from the ashes, her knees drawn close to her chest. She stared into nothing not the trees, not the horizon ,just… somewhere else. Somewhere I couldn’t reach. Josh lay propped against a pack, his breathing shallow, eyes half-lidded. He looked worse than last night, skin damp with fever, but there was a softness in Rissa’s face when she looked at him that twisted something in me.Compassion. The one thing that made her who she was and the one thing that could destroy her.I adjusted the strap of my rifle, mostly to keep my hands busy. “We need to move soon,” I said quietly. “They’ll track our