Stacy's POV The air around me didn’t carry the scent of diesel, rot, or the metallic tang of blood that had clung to my skin like a second suit for five years. Here, the air is thin, sharp, and smells of pine needles and ancient, frozen stone. It has a sterile smell. It is the smell of a fresh bandage.I stood on the balcony of the villa Caleb had provided, wrapped in a cashmere robe that cost more than my foster parents had earned in a decade. The sun was just beginning to crest over the jagged white peaks, bleeding a pale, watery gold across the valley.I looked at my hands. They were steady.For the first time since I was seventeen, the "quiet" inside me wasn't a defensive wall. It wasn't the silence I had kept while Andrew’s heart stuttered to a halt, or the stillness I had practiced while Richard looked into my "blind" eyes and saw a tragedy worth protecting.I was no longer a ghost. I was Lara Vance, a woman of means, a sister found, a shadow retired.I walked back into the w
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