Chapter 4 — Cracks in the Facade

Victor

The sun had dipped below the horizon, and the city sprawled out below Victor’s penthouse window like a glittering, fractured mosaic. He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, the weight of the day pressing against him like the faint hum of distant traffic that rose and fell, constant but unrelenting. The encounter in the forest flashed across his mind in fragments: the shadowy creature’s twisted form, the copper tang of blood in the air, and the terror in Ava’s eyes. That particular image—a fleeting, raw vulnerability—lodged itself beneath his ribs, an ache he could neither explain nor dislodge.