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RAFE'S POV
We weren't far from the festival.
Just past the last row of lights and the pulse of bass, tucked behind a slope of dunes half-shielded by palms. The music still throbbed under our feet, a muffled heartbeat against the sand, but here, it felt like another world.
Adriana paced in front of us like a caged animal, barefoot and furious, her heels abandoned beside Lucas.
"They fucking found that bitch?" she spat, her voice cutting through the humid night like broken glass.
Catalina didn't move. One hand hung loose by her side, the other gripped her phone, its screen still glowing faintly. Her face was unreadable.
"Yeah," she said.
Lucas blinked, slow, stunned. "Found—what do you mean?"
"Her body," Catalina answered, voice low, detached. "Alejandro messaged me. I've already blocked six of his accounts, but he made a new one."
The silence that followed was heavier than the heat.
"Somehow- and I don't even know how- the cops found it while searching for something different in the woods," Catalina added after a beat. "They are calling it a homicide."
Adriana made a strangled sound, spinning on her heel, fingers clawing at her hair. "Fuck. Fuck. Fucking hell. Not even dead she leaves us alone."
"Stop panicking," I said.
Adriana whirled on me, eyes burning. "Stop panicking? Are you fucking insane? One slip. One trace of DNA. That's it. We're finished."
"Yell louder," I muttered. "Maybe the whole beach didn't hear you yet."
"Fuck you."
"Real mature."
"You arrogant, smug son of a—"
"Adriana," Catalina said, her voice slicing clean across her rant.
But Adriana was spiraling too hard to stop.
"You always think you're the smartest one in the room," she hissed at me. "Like you're clean. Like your hands aren't rotting just like ours."
I took a step toward her. "Don't twist it. We're all buried in this."
"You burned the clothes. You moved the body. You're no better than the rest of us."
"And you?" I snapped. "You're the one who—"
"I panicked!"
"You didn't panic," Catalina said, stepping forward, her voice glacial. "You made a choice. Like the rest of us."
