Kiara stared at the hand reached out toward her. It was small and steady. For a long, agonizing second, Kiara didn't move. Her mind screamed that this was a trap—that the moment she took that hand, Mara would pull her into the glass or laugh just like the others.
But there was something in Mara's eyes that wasn't a joke.
Slowly, Kiara reached out. Her trembling fingers brushed Mara's palm, and for the first time in three years she felt the warmth of another human being. Mara didn't pull away. She gripped Kiara's hand with a strength that shouldn't have belonged to a seven-year-old and hauled her up from the floor.
"Hey!"
The boy in the hallway—the one who had thrown the bottle—stepped into the light. His face was twisted in a sneer of pure disgust. "What are you doing, New Girl? Are you blind? You're touching the Jinx!"
Mara didn't even look at him. She just kept her eyes on Kiara, checking the small cut on Kiara's arm from the glass.
"Didn't you hear me?" the boy shouted, his voice cracking with anger. "Are you a goody-goody or something? Or were you sent from hell to be her savior? You want to die? Because that's what happens to people who stay near her!"
Mara finally turned her head. She didn't shout. She didn't cry. She just stared at him with a cold, dead look that made the boy take a half-step back.
The boy opened his mouth to argue, but something about Mara's stillness terrified him. He spat on the floor and disappeared into the shadows of the hallway.
Mara turned back to Kiara and led her toward the bunk bed with the drawing. She sat Kiara down and began to pick the tiny shards of glass from her sleeve.
"I'm Kiara," the quiet girl whispered, her voice so low it was almost lost in the wind.
"I know," Mara replied. "And I'm Mara. And from now on, nobody throws anything at you unless they want to go through me first."
Three Years Later...
The grey walls of St. Jude's hadn't changed, but the girls within them had.
Kiara was now nine, nearly ten. She was taller, her "angel eyes" deeper and more guarded. She moved through the orphanage like a ghost—silent, observant, and hauntingly beautiful. She was the "Quiet One," the strategist who could sense a storm coming before the first cloud appeared.
Beside her, always, was Mara.
Mara had grown into a whirlwind. She was the "Fierce One," with a scar on her knuckle from a fight she'd won two winters ago and a reputation that made even the older boys give them a wide berth.
They were no longer just two orphans. They were a unit. Kiara provided the heart and the silence; Mara provided the teeth and the fire. The "Cursed Girl" wasn't alone anymore—she had a sister forged in glass and shadows. And together, they were starting to realize that the "Long Ride" of their childhood was just the beginning of a much larger war.