Chapter 20

00:20AM

30 January 2029

Idaho, United States

She recalls the pitiful looks thrown her way.

She was a girl who lost her mum at the ‘tender’ age of 15.

“Life is too cruel,” they said as they paid their condolences to herself and her father, who she had known no longer than a month.

It had turned out he was a diplomat, surrounded by sycophants, leeches who glorified his wealth and his hollow status.

He would be her guarantor, accelerating her studies, enrolling her in the most obnoxious educational institutions. Yet she vowed to turn it towards justice, to avenge her mother, to teach and heal where others could not.

She finds herself helplessly kneeling before her mother’s grave, as missiles spray across the night sky.

She closes her eyes.

I have well and truly failed you, mother.

04:36PM

9 January 1995

Idaho, United States

“Lyla, stay strong. You’re a brave girl.”

Words repeated by a bunch of strangers.

Her father had organised the funeral, after introducing himself to her only a month ago, while her mother was bedridden, comatose.

He tried to approach Lyla as she knelt on the cold, barren earth.

“I know you probably hate me, but I’ll be looking after you now.”

Fuck, she muttered under her breath as she extended her legs and laid her head on her mother’s grave.

She looked past him and found a star shooting across the sky.

She closed her eyes.

I will make you proud, mum.