Chapter 175

** Remy’s POV ** Something about returning home makes the silence worse. The forest was bad enough… too still, too knowing, but stepping into the clearing around the first of the Phoenix cabins feels even worse. Ryder raises a hand, and we slow, fanning out across the open space. The cabins look exactly how we left them last night: doors shut, windows unbroken, porch lights dark. No open drawers. No overturned chairs. No bodies. It’s the same, but so very different; at this time of day it should be a hive of activity. Children should be running and laughing, smoke should be pouring from chimneys, the scent of cooking food should be thick in the air, but this… this is just nothing. It’s eerie. My stomach twists as fragmented flashes of memories flicker in my mind. Something cold slips down my spine, and before I can stop it, the clearing shifts in my mind, overlaying memory with reality. I was three when the hunters came for us the first time. Too young to understand anything except fea