"Laney—don't be afraid," he mouthed, fingers tightening on my wrist.
I opened my eyes. The light was wrong for a hospital, wrong for a flat. Silk sheets, a window that showed a slice of the harbor, and Declan Edwards leaning over me with a towel draped across one shoulder.
"You woke up," he read from my face, lips moving slow and precise. His left eye watched my reactions. His right ear was tilted away, the bedhead room quiet except for his breath.
"Where am I?" I said aloud, voice small, testing. It came out steadier than I felt.
"Edwards Hotel suite," he said, then corrected himself with a softer mouth movement: "Declan's suite." He watched my lips while he spoke. He read faces the way other people listened to voices.
I scanned my own body. A faint bruise near my collarbone, a bandage on my forearm, the metallic taste at the back of my mouth that didn't belong to sleep. There was a glass on the nightstand with a lipstick smudge I didn't recognize.
"Do you remember what happened?" Declan asked, not looking at the room but at my face.
I let the flash burn bright and short. I died. I watched them close the casket. The funeral was full of people who smiled at cameras and whispered about my mistakes. I woke up in a hospital bed once, but this time I woke with a different clock inside me, with the knowledge that time
