“Louisa Marsh?” she says, loud enough to turn a dozen more heads. “You’re back?”
Nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
I’m not doing this.
My body moves before my brain catches up. I turn on my heel, ignore the stinging in my knees, and start shoving my way through the stunned crowd.
Faces blur around me. Bright clothes, flashing cameras, wide eyes full of recognition and pity. Maybe even glee.
I spin, disoriented, trying to find a way out. But every street is packed, every sidewalk a minefield of whispers.
“Is that really her?”
“She has some nerve showing her face…”
“She looks awful.”
My breath catches. My skin feels too tight. The burn that was simmering in my chest now claws its way up my spine.
I hear someone laugh. Not with me—at me.
My stomach flips.
Memories long buried, surface without permission:
My father’s office door slamming shut.
My mother’s clipped tone insisting, “We did what we had to.”
Jamie, my younger brother, just trying to keep his head down.
Me, only twenty years old, too angry and too naive, standing in front of the town council with trembling hands and a folder of stolen documents.
I tried to expose them. Tried to tell the truth.
But no one listened.
They turned on me.
All of them.
The Marsh girl.
The ungrateful Omega daughter.
The liar.
I trip on a length of parade bunting and nearly go down. My palm scrapes against pavement as I catch myself.
The ache in my skull pulses, sharp and hot, and I realize, too late, that I must have hit my head when I crashed.
Great. Fantastic. One more thing, on top of everything else.
So much for staying under the radar.
That had been my plan.
