(Kira’s POV)
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The fierce sunlight of Lakeview Estate beat down on my shoulders like a hamr. It was so bad that I could feel it through the material of my dress. The air shimred with heat, thick and smothering, rising off the pavent in ghostly waves. I could almost see the steam rising off the ground as the heat from the sun burned off whatever moisture was on the ground.
I stood frozen in front of Maddie’s door, clutching the plastic bags from Rotary Supermarket like they were so kind of flimsy shield. Yet, I knew very well that they would do ridiculously little to protect from what was to co. I didn’t need a shield to protect . All I needed was fast talking and my smarts. Yet, I remained mute and stared at Maddie like a fool.
Maddie.
That was her na. That’s what Lena had always called her. Maddie—never "Mother" or "Mom" in that stiff, formal way. It was always Maddie, said with a kind of reverence and familiarity that ward every story Lena told about her.
Over the weeks that Lena and I had been together, Maddie’s face had been etched into my mind, stitched into the corners of my imagination by the countless pictures Lena had shown . Smiling over birthday cakes. Standing proudly at Lena’s graduation. Holding a newborn Lena in her arms in so faded, sepia-toned photo from a ti long gone.
I had heard of all the vacations they went on together, the trials and tribulations they had to battle together. I heard them all. And with how much I knew about her, it was as if I had known her forever.
And now, here she was. In the flesh.
Standing right in front of as if she had been conjured from a very interesting and loving book, but at the worst of ti.
Lena always spoke of her mother with a certain fierce pride. Maddie was her immovable rock, her steady shield against a world that had not been kind. Lena’s father had disappeared when she was just a child, swallowed whole by whatever darkness had claid him. They never got to figure out why he left, yet it didn’t stop Maddie from doing what she had to for her daughter. It had been Maddie who pulled them both out of the slums of The Abbey, who fought tooth and nail to buy their way into a better life, brick by fucking brick.
It was Maddie who had secured their first modest but safe ho in Parallel City, giving Lena a future filled with opportunity, good schools, real friendships—the kind that stuck through thick and thin.
Those friendships had eventually led Lena to Jace’s office... where fate, it seed, had eventually placed her in my arms.
And yet, standing there now, face-to-face with the woman who had shaped the girl I loved...
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t even breathe properly.
It was as if the world had narrowed to a single, blinding spotlight focused on , exposing every flaw, every doubt, every fear I had tried to bury. Nothing made sense anymore, and I felt even more exposed than I had ever done.
Maddie stared at , her face unreadable except for a flicker of amused impatience in her sharp eyes. The bags sagged heavily in my hands, the plastic biting into my fingers as I stood there like an idiot, swaying slightly in the shimring heat.
Finally, Maddie broke the silence, her voice was dry and laced with humor.
"Uhm... are you gonna stare at all day?" she said, tilting her head to one side. "Because if you’re looking for sothing to gawk at, there’s a perfectly good television inside. Pretty sure it won’t mind your eyeballing. , though? I do."
Her voice snapped back to reality with the force of a slap.
"Oh my God... I’m so sorry!" I blurted out, my words tumbling over each other in a frantic rush. I shifted the bags from one hand to the other, trying to find my balance—and my sanity. "I just... I wasn’t expecting to see you."
Maddie’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"?" she echoed, stepping back a fraction, as if weighing whether to trust or shut the door in my face. "This is my house. Who exactly were you expecting?"
Her tone was casual, but there was a sharpness to it, a steel blade wrapped in velvet.
Panic clawed at my chest. My mind raced, frantically searching for the right words, the right lie, the right anything to explain away my sudden deer-in-the-headlights reaction.
The heat from the sun seed to press harder against my back. A bead of sweat slipped down my temple, itching fiercely, but I didn’t dare move to wipe it away.
I gripped the bags tighter until the plastic groaned in protest.
"I... uh..." I stamred, my throat closing up.
For one terrifying second, I thought Maddie was going to slam the door shut, that she was going to call soone—Lena, the police, anyone—and that whatever thin, crumbling layer of trust Lena had in would shatter like glass.
Maddie’s gaze stayed locked onto mine, cool and assessing. I felt like I was being asured, weighed, judged—and found lacking.
"You okay, kid?" she asked after a mont, her voice softer now, almost wary. "You look like you’re about to pass out."
I forced a laugh—a weak, shaky thing that sounded hollow even to my own ears.
There was a long, uncomfortable pause between us. The kind of silence that felt alive, crawling up the walls, slithering under the doorfra, seeping into your lungs.
Just then, my phone vibrated sharply in my palm, its sudden buzz slicing through the heavy silence like a scalpel. My fingers fumbled clumsily as I turned it over, the plastic bags crinkling loudly in the oppressive heat.
The screen lit up.
A ssage.
From Maven. As expected. But his text sent a chill through my spine.
Give the groceries to her. You went shopping for your girlfriend’s mother!
I stared at the glowing words, my stomach dropping like a stone in a well.
"What the fuck..." I whispered under my breath, the words rasping out of in a broken hiss. I clutched the phone tighter, as if sohow squeezing it hard enough would erase the ssage—or strangle the ghostly hand that had sent it.
What the fuck was this?
What twisted ga was Maven playing now?
Making shop for Lena’s mother like so pathetic errand girl? Forcing to stand here, exposed, vulnerable, in front of the one person who could shatter everything if she so much as caught a whiff of suspicion?
The possibilities twisted inside my mind like a nest of snakes.
Maybe it wasn’t just about humiliation. Maybe it wasn’t about fear. Maybe this was part of sothing deeper. Darker. A slow, patient erosion of everything I cared about, starting with Lena and her mother.
Was there so vendetta here that I hadn’t yet uncovered?
Was I just a pawn in a much bigger, much more brutal ga?
The air seed to thicken around , sticky and suffocating. I could feel Maddie’s eyes boring into the top of my head, waiting. Expecting. Judging.
"I’m still waiting," Maddie said again, her voice sharper now, laced with suspicion. Each syllable fell like a gavel hamring against my bones.
Panic surged up my spine.
If I didn’t move—if I didn’t act—it was going to be over before it even began. Maddie would slam the door, call Lena, call the cops, call soone, anyone, and then Maven would win. I could never allow that. Not for anything.
"Oh shit..." I muttered under my breath, my mind scrambling for a solution, any solution. The sweat that had been trickling down my neck now poured freely, soaking the collar of my jacket. The grocery bags felt ten tis heavier in my hands, dragging down, anchoring to this nightmare.
Think, damn it. Think.
I had to say sothing. Anything. A lie, half-truth, a distraction—whatever it took to get these bags into Maddie’s hands and get the hell out of here without raising too many alarms.
But if I said the wrong thing, if I tipped her off even slightly...
Lena’s face flashed before my eyes—betrayed, heartbroken, furious.
Maddie was watching closely now. I could feel the weight of her gaze, like a surgeon examining a patient before making the first cut. One wrong move, and she would see right through .
"Hello?" she pressed, her voice cutting through the thick, buzzing panic that had wrapped itself around my brain. "You planning to stand there lting into a puddle, or are you gonna tell who the hell you are?"
My heart slamd against my ribs.
The words tumbled out before I could stop them, driven by pure, primal instinct to be done with the whole thing.
"I... uhm... I’m a friend of Lena’s," I blurted.
Instantly, a wave of regret crashed over , cold and rciless.
It was too fast. Too desperate. Too wrong.
I could see it in Maddie’s eyes—the way they narrowed slightly, the slight tension that coiled through her body like a spring being wound too tight. She was suspicious now. I could feel it hanging in the air between us like the stench of smoke after a fire.
In that mont, I knew for a fact that I had ssed up!
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