Chapter 25 Without Asking

***Hazel***

I wake up before the alarm.

Not rested. Not refreshed. Just… awake.

The room is quiet in a way I’m not used to. No shouting through the walls. No bass rattling the floorboards. No sirens slicing through sleep every twenty minutes. For a moment, I lie there staring at the ceiling, waiting for something bad to happen.

Nothing does.

Jocelyn is still asleep down the hall, door cracked open