Are You Safe?

**Sloane**

The deadbolt slides home with a hollow metallic thud. The second I step past the threshold of this backup safe house, I know sleep is out of the question. The silence in the cramped room presses against my eardrums, suffocating and thick, smelling of old dust and damp wood. Fire flares across my shoulder—a brutal, burning agony radiating from the deep blade wound I caught during the es