Sienna and Mia walked down the fire exit stairs side by side, their steps echoing softly against the concrete walls.
For once, the silence between them wasn't heavy with pain. It was different, yet still filled with something unspoken.
Relief lingered in the air around them, but so did confusion, like a question neither of them quite dared to ask out loud.
Sienna glanced at Mia from the corner of her eye. Her best friend's face looked… strange.
Not sad. Not exactly happy either. More like someone who had just escaped a storm but was still checking the sky, unsure if the clouds would return.
Sienna, on the other hand, felt something close to victory bubbling inside her chest. Not a loud, dramatic kind of victory, but more like the quiet satisfaction of surviving something that should have crushed her.
Still, her mind kept circling back to one thing. 'What on earth did Riley show them?'
