"Are you crazy?"
Caelen's voice cracked like a whip through the dust-choked chamber, molten veins searing brighter across his fissured skin.
His usual sharp grin was gone, carved into a grim, hard line—as though Eli had just demanded he slit his own throat.
Eli's lips trembled once, but then pressed into a thin, stubborn curve. "Yes. I mean… no?"
The word left him steady, firmer than he felt. His ribs still ached with every breath, his legs quivered like brittle glass, his lungs burned like hot coal—yet his voice refused to betray it.
For a beat, silence hung thick between them. The priest loomed above, its titanic form unmoving, rosary beads swaying slow and steady like a pendulum of death.
Watching. Waiting.
