(Kaelen)
She comes in the rain.
That's the thing that gets me before anything else does. Not the bruise — I'll see that in a minute. Not the way she's holding her arm. The rain. Because Lara has been standing outside the Silver Crescent gate long enough to be completely soaked through, hair flat against her face, mascara tracking down both cheeks, and she didn't once ask to come in out of the weather.
She just stood there.
I get the call at quarter past nine. I'm in the sitting room not really reading something, and when my phone buzzes and the gate guard says *there's a woman at the gate, says she's your sister,* the book is on the floor before I've decided to put it down.
---
I see the bruise from ten feet away.
Lara is standing just inside the gate, arms wrapped around herself, a
