Distraction

Annalise >>>

There was no way I could tell him.

No way I could look into those desperate, searching eyes and say the words that would shatter everything he believed in. That I wasn't the real Iris—that I was just an intruder, a stranger in borrowed skin and got a cruel reminder of that.

That every memory he had of me, every moment we shared, was built on a lie.

My stomach twisted painfully, nausea curling at the pit of it.

For the first time since waking in this world, the second chance I had been given—the life I had fought to embrace—felt more like a curse than a blessing, the shadows of my last life haunting me.

I swallowed hard, forcing the thought away.

Atlas was still watching me, his expression strained with worry, with something deeper that made my chest tighten. He cared. He cared so much it was suffocating, overwhelming.

And that made it worse.