SOPHIA
The October dawn doesn't break across Silverfrost—it seeps through like infection, gray light revealing Garrett Durand's corpse in stages that make my stomach clench. Yellow tape trembles without wind, and investigators move through the scene like men walking underwater, their faces pale with more than just death's proximity.
The wrongness started the moment Allura's fingers grazed my wrist last night. Now it spreads through my veins, cold and deliberate, searching for something to extract or expose.
Run. The real Sophia's consciousness flickers inside me, moth-weak. She knows what you carry. Run before she tears us apart.
I push the remnant deeper, but she scratches at my mind with phantom nails, leaving wounds in places that have no names.
"Such unfortunate timing."
Allura m
