Chapter 12. Sparks on the Wire

Magnus’s voice echoed in Riven’s skull long after she’d left the garage.

By the time she stumbled into her room, she couldn’t sit still. She paced, boots thudding against the floorboards, jacket still zipped. Her reflection in the mirror looked wild-eyed, cheeks flushed, hair tangled with ash.

She looked like her father on the nights before a ride—burning with something she couldn’t put out.

Axel hadn’t come after her.

She’d half-expected him to. Half-hoped, maybe. But when she’d stormed out of the garage, he’d stayed rooted in Magnus’s shadow, eyes unreadable, shoulders stiff with the weight of bloodlines.

It shouldn’t have surprised her. Blood was thicker than fire.

And yet, the silence from him stung worse than Magnus’s warning.

***

At school the next day, the rumors multiplied like sparks in dry grass.

“She’s cursed.”

“Wolfe’s keeping her close ‘cause she knows something.”

“She’ll drag him down, too.”

Every