Simone’s POV
"Where is the rest of the blood?"
Mother stood inside my bedroom door. Her shadow cut a long, sharp line across the silk sheets where I had been staring at the white ceiling. The light fixture needed dusting. My eyes kept fixing on the grey cobwebs in the brass links because my jaw throbbed too hard to let me look anywhere else.
"I do not know what you mean," I said. My fingers curled into the mattress, digging through the smooth fabric until my nails bit my palms.
Mother did not move. Her chin stayed high. Her nostrils flared with the slow, rhythmic scent-testing of a wolf who smelled a kill three miles away. She held her phone in her right hand, the screen glowing with the bright red numbers of our shared banking ledger.
"You spent twelve thousand credits at the jewelle
