Rue’s POV

Two weeks after I learned how to speak again, I learned how to stand without shaking like a leaf in a storm.

I had trained and rehabilitated for hours until my body called it punishment.

Every morning began the same way: I would wake already exhausted, muscles trembling as if they had been running all night without me. Sometimes I couldn’t remember falling asleep. Sometimes I couldn’t remember who I was until Cole said my name.

“Rue,” he would say, as if reminding the world ...