Havana woke like a corpse returning to life.
Her lungs seized, then dragged in a breath that felt like fire, as if the very air fought her, as if oxygen resented being used by something no longer fully human.
Her mouth opened in a gasp, raw and rasping, and her limbs twitched violently, still caught in the aftershocks of whatever had been done to her.
It had been three days.
Her vision blurred with the effort of sitting up. She felt like her muscles were fighting her from the inside, like her own bones were unsure how to hold her anymore. She felt alien.
A throbbing rhythm pounded through her chest — not just one heartbeat but three. Her second heart pulsed three times faster than her original one, and she could feel every beat like a hammer, vibrating through her bones, echoing in
