Chapter 136
Estela POV
Usually, when I take a life, the guilt seeps in fast and merciless. It sits heavy on my chest, weighs down the air I breathe. Even when it was justified, even when I told myself I had no choice—it always followed. That hollow ache. The aftertaste of violence.
But not this time.
This time, I feel something else entirely.
I don't know if it's the adrenaline, or the way our lives nearly slipped through our fingers. Maybe it's the sharpness of the air in this moment, mixed with the faint scent of gunpowder, blood, and her perfume. Maybe it's the taboo of it all—bodies around us, death in the walls, and the train still coasting through a foreign country like nothing happened.
But I have never been more turned on in my life.
My body is still trembling, but it's not from fear or even exhaustion. It's something else. My skin feels too tight, like it can't hold in everything boiling beneath.
Then Daphne shifts.
