Aria pov
I went very still as realization suddenly hit me, my mind moving backwards without permission, connecting things I hadn't thought to connect.
The exhaustion during the lockdown. I had blamed stress and fear and the particular weight of living under threat. But I had slept deeply and heavily and unusually, in a way that stress had never produced in me before. Stress kept me awake but this had pulled me under.
I set my tea down slowly. The week before the shooting. I had been turned on constantly, unreasonably, in a way that had no rational explanation. I had blamed Damien's proximity. The enforced closeness of the lockdown. The tension of everything Marcus represented and the way danger had always made the two of us reach for each other. I had made myself believe all of that.
