Eve
The world stopped.
Her words slammed into me so hard I forgot how to breathe.
Lyra.
My mother.
Marked.
It was as if every sound in the infirmary bled out at once. The Gammas. The medics. The quiet shuffle of boots on the polished floor. Gone. All I could hear was the pounding in my own ears.
And then came the memories.
Not the good ones.
Not the warm ones.
Just the jagged, splintered fragments of the last time I saw her.
"You are no daughter of mine. You are a plague. A curse."
Her voice had been razor-sharp, cutting straight through flesh and bone, lodging itself deep where no one could pull it out. I had been standing there, chained and bloodied, my face swollen from the last round of interrogation, still trying to believe that if I held on just a little longer, she would come for me.
I remember staring at her in shock, the sting in my chest far worse than the ache in my broken ribs.
I remember the confusion, the disbelief.
