Vera

The world collapsed into sound.

The gunshot echoed off stone, shattering centuries of silence, and Vera’s scream tore free from somewhere deeper than her lungs. She dropped to her knees instinctively, wrapping her body around Vanessa, hands searching frantically, desperately, for the truth beneath the terror.

“No—no—no—”

Vanessa was crying.

Crying meant alive.

Vera’s shaking hands came away wet—but the blood wasn’t where she expected it to be.

It was on Vera’s ...