C63 ICE SIXTY-THREE: 'ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT.'

THANE'S POV:

The thought made me take another long pull from the bottle.

Everyone’s voices, their warnings, their judgments about Madison, “she’s not real,” “she’s using you,” “she’s hiding something,” they’d always bounce off me like rubber bullets. But now, with the bottle slick in my shaking hands, shame seeped in, heavy and sour.

Shame that I had let her walk into tonight’s ambush alone