[Phreya]

As I rounded on the tail end of my story, recounting the exact sequence of the night I died, I watched my father like a hawk eyeing its prey.

Not because I wanted to—or even because I enjoyed seeing the clear anguish in his countenance as I retold the gory truth of my initial demise.

No, it was a biological imperative.

A survival instinct born from an existence spent in the shadows, constantly calculating the movements of predators.

For almost twenty years, I had watched this man ...