Back at the headquarters' dining room, the tension was thick enough to suffocate.
Elena sat at the long polished table, her fingers lightly resting against its cold surface as her gaze swept across the room. The looks she received were far from welcoming—sharp, distant, some even laced with open hostility. It was almost laughable.
These were people she had once called her own.
People who had stood beside her in battle, who had bled with her, laughed with her, sworn loyalty beneath blood oaths and broken skies. They had been a unit—unshakable, relentless. A force others feared.
So what changed?
What twisted something so strong into this brittle, fractured mess?
Her jaw tightened as her eyes lingered on one particular figure.
Cassandra Everhart.
