VIV’S POV

“What’s taking them so long to begin this godforsaken interrogation?” I murmured to myself.

The detention room smelled like sterilized secrets and old betrayal.

Cold, too. Clinical.

The air-conditioning hummed with detached cruelty, as if reminding me this place had no warmth for me. I sat still, spine stiff, hands folded neatly in my lap, my wrists bare where a slim silver bracelet had once rested—confiscated the moment I walked in.

Or rather, was brought in almost forcefully.

Two agents sat across from me, not in suits, but in those awful business-casual shirts and slacks meant to appear unthreatening. They weren’t.

One tapped a pen against a notepad...