HAZEL
With those parting words, Vasilisa linked arms with her mother and glided away, leaving me standing there, stunned, her words echoing in my head like a threat. And I suddenly felt very, very alone.
I kept standing there, all alone, in this room full of people who talked like they were scheming. Because why would people whisper unless they were planning something?
Their conversations felt like little sharp blades cutting through the air. I felt so out of place.
The women clung to their men like jewels they were guarding, and they all had this look in their eyes I couldn't even begin to understand. And the men... God, the way they looked at me. Even with their women beside them, they still glared, still watched me with that disgusting, hungry kind of lust, mixed with a cold, calcul
