Michael had seen death before. He'd seen it in alleys, in the back seats of cars, in homes where the air still smelled of dinner and perfume and the television was left running, ignorant of what had just happened in the room beside it. He'd walked into pools of blood, into violence, into chaos. He'd been trained to face it, to separate himself from it.
But nothing prepared him for this.
Selena's body was pale beneath the dim bathroom light, her dark hair clinging wet to porcelain and skin. Her lips were parted, soft and drained of color, her eyelashes clumped with water. She looked less like a body and more like an unfinished sentence, cut short before it could finish its meaning.
Michael's knees dug into the tile as he pressed his palms against her chest. His training screamed at him to move, to keep moving, to fight for her life even when everything in him told him it was already gone.
