Chapter 6

The celebration moved inside, but Eliza wasn't invited.

A maid escorted her to the North Wing of the mansion, opened a door to a cold, musty room, and left without a word. No fire in the hearth. No welcome basket. Just a damp, forgotten room that smelled of dust and old fabric.

Eliza locked the door behind her. She didn't turn on the lights. She didn't need them. Her eyes, adjusted to the dark, swept the room with perfect clarity. It was sparse-a heavy wooden bed, a wardrobe covered in dust sheets, and a drafty window.

She walked over to the window and pulled the heavy velvet curtains shut, plunging the room into total darkness.

She moved to the bed and sat on the edge of the stiff mattress. She reached into the hidden lining of her worn canvas bag and pulled out a heavy, cold object.

It was a brass hound statue, small enough to fit in her palm but dense with weight. It was the only thing she had managed to grab from her father's study the night the Christian family burned.

She ran her thumb over the base, feeling the worn grooves of the family crest. The metal was cold against her skin, but it grounded her. The exhaustion of the day hit her all at once, dragging her down into the mattress. She lay back, still in the ugly wedding dress, clutching the brass hound to her chest like a shield.

The moment her eyes closed, the neural interface pulsed. The emotional stress triggered a deep memory dump, dragging her down into a nightmare.

She was fifteen again. The sky above Boston was orange with fire. The heat was blistering, singeing her eyebrows. She could hear her father screaming from the study, a sound of pure agony, followed by the deafening bang of a gunshot.

Through the flames, a tall, dark figure walked out. He was holding the silver case containing her father's neural manipulation core. He didn't look back.

The scene shifted. She was in the basement of the Pask house. Cade Pask's hand was on the back of her neck, forcing her head down into a tub of freezing water. The cold shocked her lungs, the water filling her nose. She thrashed, but he held her down.

"Little blind rat," Brenda Sykes's voice screeched from the top of the stairs, accompanied by the sharp crack of a leather belt biting into Eliza's back. "You'll earn your keep, you worthless parasite!"

The nightmare twisted again. The dark figure turned around, and it was Clifford Gray. He was holding a scalpel, pressing it against her swollen belly, his eyes dead and cold.

Eliza's eyes snapped open. She jackknifed up in bed, gasping for air, her chest heaving. The room was pitch black, but she could see perfectly. Sweat soaked through the wedding dress, chilling her skin. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would break her ribs.

She looked down. Her fingers were still locked around the brass hound, her grip so tight her nails were scraping against the metal, making a faint, grating sound.

She forced her fingers to relax. The fear in her eyes evaporated, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. She wasn't that drowning girl anymore.

She threw the covers off and slid out of bed. She stepped out of the cheap heels and placed her bare feet on the cold hardwood floor. She moved silently, like a ghost.

The neural interface clicked on, responding to her heightened state. A faint, blue thermal overlay painted her vision. She scanned the room, her eyes immediately drawn to two tiny, blinking red dots.

One was hidden inside the air vent above the bed. The other was tucked inside the smoke detector near the bathroom door. Micro-cameras. Pointed directly at the bed and the shower.

Eliza let out a soft, humorless laugh. They really don't trust a blind woman.

She walked straight to the blind spot behind the heavy wardrobe. Out of view of the cameras, she quickly stripped off the humiliating wedding dress and pulled on a pair of dark jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt.

She picked up her white cane. She walked back into the center of the room, making sure she was in full view of the camera. She faked a clumsy stumble over the leg of the chair, letting out a sharp, pitiful yelp of pain.

She rubbed her shin, whimpering softly, selling the image of the helpless, clumsy blind girl to whoever was watching the feed. Once she was sure the watcher had bought the act, she fumbled her way to the door, her hands sliding along the wall.

She turned the handle and slipped out into the dark corridor. The door clicked shut behind her.

Eliza stood in the shadows of the hallway. She closed her eyes, pushing her hearing outward. The estate was vast, but to her enhanced ears, it was an open book. She could hear the guards patrolling the perimeter, the clink of glasses in the main hall, the breathing of the maid two rooms down.

She gripped the brass hound in her pocket. She was going to burn this place to the ground. But first, she needed to find the matches.