Riley stood frozen in the middle of the street, his heart hammering in his chest as the whispers around him grew louder. 'Dead.' The word ricocheted in his mind like a stray bullet, refusing to settle.
Mack and his gang... dead? He hadn't meant for it to go that far. The plan had been simple—just scare them, maybe injure them at most, but now they were gone. Dead. His fingers twitched, as if feeling the weight of the disaster pressing down on him.
Around him, the village thrummed with a quiet dread, the murmur of voices cutting through the humid air. It felt like every set of eyes was locked on him. He couldn't shake the gnawing sense that they all knew, that somehow the guilt that weighed on him was visible in the way he moved, the way he stood.
