Desiree POV
Avery was the first to move.
For a moment, she simply stood there, her body stiff with disbelief, her eyes scanning the woman in front of us as though trying to piece together memories she had long buried, and then something in her expression shifted—recognition, fragile and uncertain, breaking through the shock.
“Mum…” she whispered again, her voice trembling as she took a hesitant step forward, her composure cracking under the weight of emotion. “Where have you been?”
There was longing in her voice.
Pain.
Questions that had clearly gone unanswered for far too long.
But the woman did not answer her.
Instead, she moved not toward Avery but toward me.
Each step she took felt deliberate, heavy with purpose, and as she drew closer, I became painfully aware of the energy s
