Marceline sat very still in the hospital chair, the device resting in her open palm. The red light had not faded. It stayed there, steady and ugly, confirming what her gut had already told her the moment she ran the test.
She knew this one.
Years ago her grandmother had taken a single sip from a cup that looked ordinary. No bitter taste, no warning. Within hours the old woman had grown quiet, her speech slow, her hands unsteady.
The doctors had scrambled. She survived, but the memory of those long nights...watching her struggle for every breath, the house filled with the smell of medicine and fear...had never left Marceline. Silent. Almost polite in the way it worked. And deadly if no one caught it in time.
“s**t,” she muttered under her breath. The word came out rough.
Her free hand
