The second humiliation didn't come with screams or direct confrontation, and perhaps that's why it was even more corrosive, because Selena had always known how to deal with frontal attacks, open disputes, and explicit violence that allowed immediate response, but what hit her now was different, silent, made of diverted gazes, whispers that ceased when she approached and, above all, the uncomfortable certainty that Luara no longer needed to face her directly to defeat her.

Selena walked ...