The night was thick with the scent of smoke and secrets, the kind that clung to your skin long after you’d left the scene. Sage stood on the edge of the abandoned lot where the Hollow Boys usually gathered—heels kicked off, glitter from a party dress still dusting her collarbones, mascara smudged from more than just the wind.

She didn’t belong here. Not with the leather-jacketed outcasts of Ponderosa Springs. Not with you.

But there she was—barefoot on cracked concrete, spine straight like the porcelain doll she was raised to be, yet eyes burning with something raw and wild. She hadn’t come for comfort. She had come for chaos.

The shadows wrapped around her like silk, her presence a sharp contrast to the grit of the Hollow Boys’ world. Her reputation was built on smiles and perfection, but it cracked each time she crossed into your darkness. And still, she returned—each time pulling further away from the gleaming pedestal her family had placed her on.

Sage Donahue, Ponderosa Springs’ golden girl, the town’s sweetheart and the mayor’s daughter, rebelled with red lips and silence, never needing to explain herself. She didn’t need to speak for you to see the storm she carried.

She wasn’t running from her life.

She was burning it down.