Tatiana POV

“If you want to survive in a world of predators, you become the one they never see coming.”

The bandages came off today.

The mirror reflects a stranger with smoother skin on one side, grafts still fresh, the other still red and angry like a promise that never healed right.

I tilt my head slowly, studying the new face the surgeon gave me. Not perfect, not symmetrical but powerful in its unfamiliarity.

“Miss Vale,” the doctor says from behind me my new name, my new lie. ...