CHAPTER 1

Lyra’s POV

FLASHBACK 11 YEARS BACK

The world dissolves into screaming. My screaming. The smell of rain on hot pavement is so sharp it burns my nose. My mother’s arms, Iris, are wrapped around me, a desperate cage. “No, please, no! Let her go!”

A different set of arms, brutal and strong, yanks me from her. The world tilts. I’m flying, then crashing into the dark, smelly inside of a van. The doors slam shut, swallowing the light. Swallowing her.

The van moved away. I scream until my throat hurts and no sound comes out.

Just as the van stopped. The doors open to a different darkness. A basement. It smells of wet dirt, of rotten wood, of something else… something sharp and metallic I don’t have a name for yet.

A man with a black mask over his face shoves me inside. “Move.”

I stumble forward. Other kids are huddled on a cold concrete floor. Their crying is a low, constant hum, like trapped bees. I count seven. Then six. Then seven again. My eyes won’t focus.

A small boy with wide, scared eyes scoots over. “Don’t make noise,” he whispers, his voice trembling. “They get mad.”

“I want my mom,” I whimper, the words scratching my hurt throat.

He just shakes his head, pulling his knees tighter to his chest.

The door creaks open again. Two men walk in. Not the driver. These are different. Their masks are clean, white. It’s worse.

“Time for lessons,” one says. His voice is flat, like a robot in a movie.

The other one points to a girl with braids. “You. Up.”

She shakes her head, crying. “No. Please.”

The man with the flat voice sighs, like he’s bored. He walks over, grabs her by the arm, and pulls her to a metal table in the corner. She kicks and screams.

“The lesson is about obedience,” the other man says to the rest of us. He looks right at me. His eyes are empty. “You will learn to do as you’re told. To feel what we tell you to feel.”

He takes out a long, thin needle. The girl on the table screams louder.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t look. But I can still hear. Her scream cuts off with a gasp. Then a horrible, quiet whimpering.

“See?” the man says. “It’s easier if you don’t fight. We’re just trying to… open you up. Find what’s inside.”

Days blur together. Or maybe they’re weeks. The lights are always on, so I can’t tell. The men come back. Again and again.

They take the boy who warned me. They bring him back an hour later. He’s not crying anymore. He just stares at the wall, not blinking. A tiny trickle of blood drips from his nose.

“He didn’t understand the lesson,” a man says, dropping him on the floor. “We need to scare the bad feelings out. Make room for the good ones. The pleasurable ones.”

One of them kneels in front of me. He holds a small black box with wires. “You’re a strong girl, aren’t you? Let’s see how strong.”

The touch of the wires is cold on my skin. Then it’s not cold. It’s a thousand knives made of lightning, cutting me up from the inside. My body jumps and shakes on the floor. I can’t even scream. The pain is everything.

He pulls the wires away. “Your body wants to feel good,” he whispers, his masked face close to mine. “We’re teaching it how. The pain is just the key. It unlocks the door.”

I don’t understand. I just want it to stop.

Kids disappear. One by one. The girl with braids is gone. The quiet boy is gone. They don’t come back. The humming cries of the ones left behind get quieter, until it’s just the sound of shaking breaths.

I am broken. I am a hollow doll. I sit and I wait for the men to come back. The fear is a stone in my stomach, forever.

Then, a new sound. Not crying. Not the men’s footsteps.

It’s shouting. Sharp, loud bangs. The door shudders and then splinters inward.

Men in uniforms pour into the room. They’re shouting too, but their shouts are different. “It’s okay! We’re police! You’re safe!”

Safe. The word doesn’t mean anything.

Strong hands pick me up. I don’t fight. I can’t. A woman with a kind face puts a blanket around my shoulders. “You’re okay, sweetheart. It’s over.”

They take us to a hospital. It’s too bright, too white. Everything smells like cleaning stuff. People talk to me in soft voices, but their words are just noise. I can’t talk back. My voice is gone. A nice lady helps me put on a papery gown. She tries to wash the dirt off my arms. The water turns brown.

A nurse comes into the room. “Lyra? Your mother is here.”

My heart does a thing it hasn’t done in weeks. It leaps. Mom. She’s here. She found me. Everything will be okay now. She’ll hold me and tell me she loves me and we’ll go home.

The door opens. And there she is. My mom.

But her face… it’s not the face from my memories. Her soft features are pulled into a tight, thin line. Her eyes, which I remember being so warm, skate over me and then look at the wall, at the nurse, anywhere but at me. She’s holding a clipboard.

“Just sign here, and here,” the nurse says gently. “We have some information for follow-up care with a therapist—”

“I don’t have time for all that,” Iris says, her voice clipped. She scratches her signature on the papers without reading them. “Let’s just go.”

She finally looks at me. There’s no relief. No tears. No love. There’s just… annoyance. Impatience. Like I’m a chore she forgot to do.

“Can you walk?” she asks. Her tone is cold, like she’s talking to a stranger who’s slowing her down.

I try to stand. My legs are weak noodles. I stumble, grabbing the bed for support.

Iris lets out a short, tired sigh. “For heaven’s sake, Lyra. Try harder. I don’t have all day.”