جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 30

Two Years Ago The music at Marcus's house was too loud for the crowded living room. Bodies filled the floor, cups in hand, the playlist running without a break. Aria stood near the drinks table with Chloe and two other girls, a cup in her hand, watching the room. "Is that Natalie Hart?" one of the girls said, tilting her head toward the doorway. "In that dress?" Chloe snorted. "Since when does she come to parties like this." "Maybe she borrowed it. Does not look like anything she would actually own." Natalie walked past them a few feet away, close enough to hear every word. Her step slowed for a moment before she continued toward the drinks table. "Poor thing," the first girl said, not lowering her voice. Aria smiled and nodded, like she was listening, even though the conversation had already lost her attention. Natalie's eyes shifted to Aria, catching the smile on her face. She looked at her for a moment before turning toward the bathroom without a word. A few minu

*Aria's POV* Coach Reeves cut the engine at the edge of the clearing. Through the windshield I could see them clearly enough, two shapes standing close to the stone wall, Owen's arms cutting through the air as he spoke, Natalie's arms crossed tight over her chest. "Stay behind me," Kael said, already reaching for the door handle. "I did not come here to hide behind you." "I did not say hide. I said stay behind me." I got out, my legs a little unsteady on the gravel. The cold air from the reservoir came through my jacket. Coach Reeves came around the front of the car, walking slowly as he looked around the clearing. Natalie turned first. Her eyes went wide. "Aria?" she said. "What are you doing here?" Owen turned too. His mouth was still open from whatever he had been saying to her, but he shut it the moment he saw me, his eyes going narrow and cold. "You," he said. "Owen." Coach Reeves stepped out from behind the car, his voice even. "We need to talk." "There is

Aria's POV They put us in a second car, the four watchers splitting between the two vehicles, and drove us maybe twenty minutes deeper into the woods before the trees opened onto a clearing. The building at the centre of it did not look like it belonged to this century. Stone walls, low and wide, half-swallowed by ivy that looked older than the structure itself. No electric light anywhere that I could see, only the warm flicker of fire coming through the narrow windows. "What is this place," I asked. "Neutral ground," Coach Reeves said quietly. "The Circle keeps a few of these scattered around." The heavy wooden door opened without anyone touching it, and the room inside took the last of my composure with it. It was a stone amphitheatre cut into the ground, its dark tiers rising around a sunken floor. A fire pit burned low at the centre, throwing just enough light to make the shadows deeper. Five figures sat along the highest tier in dark coats like Voss's. None of them

Aria's POV Serena found me before I had even gotten my locker open. "You're alive." She grabbed my arm and spun me around. "Four days, Aria. Four days of nothing. I called. I texted. I nearly filed a missing person report, and security looked at me like I had lost my mind, because you had already texted them some story about a family emergency that nobody told me about." "It happened fast. I'm sorry." "You look terrible, by the way. No offense." She looked at me for a second. "Are you actually okay?" "I'm here." "That's not the same question." "I know it isn't." "Then answer the real one." "I can't. Not right now." I pulled my bag higher on my shoulder, needing something to do with my hands. "I promise I will tell you what I can, when I can. Just not standing in this hallway before first period." Serena folded her arms and studied me for a moment. "Fine. But you owe me lunch and a real conversation. Both." "Deal." "Also, half the team thinks Kael and Damien joi

Aria's POV I was still awake when my bedroom door opened a little after midnight, the hallway light cutting a thin line across my carpet before my mother's shadow filled it. I closed my eyes and kept my breathing slow and even, the way I used to when I was small and did not want her to know I had heard my parents arguing downstairs. Old habits came back fast when they were needed. She crossed the room quietly and sat on the edge of my bed, the mattress dipping under her weight. For a long moment she did not say anything at all, just sat there, and I felt her looking at me. Her hand brushed my hair back from my forehead, gentle, the same way she used to when I was sick as a child. "Whatever this is, Aria, whatever you're not telling us," she said quietly, more to the room than to me, the way people talk to someone they believe cannot hear them. "Some things skip a generation before they come back around. I always hoped they'd skip you entirely." I lay perfectly still, my heart su